Cough into Your Sleeve
by Mel like Mellow
Summary: I remember when you would say we'd be okay, come what may. /  Teenagers will be teenagers.  Violate. Set throughout Season 1 and maybe beyond.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** Okay, so I didn't realize how addictive this fandom could be for writing fiction. So many little ideas began to spring into my head after my first piece, and I had to get at least one out of my brain! This takes place sometime between the first few episodes, in the time before Violet and Tate started getting serious. I like to think about them just hanging out and bullshitting as teenagers are wont to do.

Hope I'm getting them right. They're both really interesting to write for. They kind of make me feel like an asshole.

Review if it suits you, I'd like to know what y'all think!

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

The melancholy lilt of Greg Laswell is their anthem on this day, a little more modern than their typical choice of Cobain or some other alt 90's whiner. Violet's always taken aback when Tate has never heard of certain artists in her queue – she doesn't know why she's surprised, she listens to some pretty off-the-cuff stuff, but she just involuntarily assumes he's gonna know everything about the same things she knows everything about.

It's stupid to think that. They've only started hanging out again within the last couple weeks. But still, he's just got this way about him like he's got the secret to everything that ever was. Maybe it's because he's older than her, she thinks.

But Tate's got his eyes closed and seems to be enjoying the sullen guitar riff with the air of someone trying to truly appreciate a novel thing, and Violet feels a beam of pride zigzag through her that she's shown him something new.

"I like this," he voices, cracking one eye open to watch her watching him. She looks away and nods as she tries to hide a smile. "Mellow. It's calming, I like that."

"Yeah, it's cool," she plays it off and shuffles over to the bed where Tate's prone figure lies horizontally. His knees bend over the edge of the mattress, his chucks hanging off at his heels. He looks so comfortable; how can he be so comfortable lying on her bed like that? She has jitters just looking at him, him on top of her covers like he's not a boy in her room.

Tentatively, Violet settles a proper distance from him and reclines in parallel to him. He doesn't flinch or even glance at her, still lost in the soothing tones. Violet folds her hands over her stomach and allows her lids to fall as she envelops herself in the music, too.

She remembers days like this in Boston, just like this, but she was alone then. Very alone. She forgets he's there, a little bit, and exhales softly with nostalgia overcoming her.

"What's with that?"

Violet opens her eyes and turns her head to look at him, and she turns a bit pink at how intently he stares. "What?"

"The sigh. You bored?" He moves to sit up, but when she shakes her head, he just rolls his shoulders into the mattress.

"Nah. Just thinking about stuff."

"Like?"

"Before I was here. I used to listen to music alone in my room a lot."

He snickers softly, and her eyebrows crease in question. He rolls his eyes. "Yeah, 'cause you don't do that now?"

His teasing draws a tiny laugh from the back of her throat and she turns her face away from him. "Shut up, you know what I mean."

"I don't, though," Tate's voice is sincere, it's like a switch, and Violet looks back at him. "Tell me about it."

Violet shrugs and makes a face. "Nothing to tell. When things really got bad, I'd just crank up the most morose shit I had on my iPod and just lay there. For hours, sometimes. Like this." Her hand lifts from her stomach vaguely, and she doesn't see him look down at her ribcage, and lower.

"Would you fall asleep?"

She shakes her head. "No. Just think about things."

"Like this." He states, and she nods. The quiet settles between them as AIR drifts languidly from her speakers. Her eyes close again, but she can still feel him looking at her. Finally, he asks, "You ever been to a therapist?"

Violet peers and searches his face with uncertainty. "Where did that come from? You think I'm that weird?"

His chuckle is a short sound and he squints at her. "Uh, yeah, maybe. You ever?"

It's her turn to roll her eyes. "Whatever. Yeah, sure."

"Really?" His interest perks and he lifts himself up on one elbow. "What for?"

She's sure he's so curious to find another common source between them, because she feels it too. "It wasn't anything, like, big. I had to go 'talk' to someone," she affects with air quotations, "After that whole thing with the miscarriage."

"Oh." Tate sounds a little deflated, but he's still half-sitting upright, looking down at her. Waiting for the continuation of a story she really hadn't ever bothered to tell anyone. She didn't find it that interesting – why should he? But she resumes just to appease him and his hungry eyes.

"Dad thought it was best for me to go. He and mom went to talk to people, too. It was such a crock – I had two sessions a week for two and a half weeks. I ended up bailing on the last two." Violet looks up and across to meet his gaze with a crooked smile. "I don't know if you've noticed, but I'm not a very good sharer."

"I never would've guessed," he in-tones, and she huffs a small laugh. "What about the second time?"

Violet purses her lips in a thoughtful glower. "My parents were thinking about divorce, just before they decided to move here. Or mom was, anyway. Her lawyer recommended sending me to counseling beforehand. All it was, was a bullshit way for them to try to make themselves feel better. It wasn't for me."

"What makes you say that?"

She stares hard at the ceiling and hates rooting through these memories. They still burn inside, not like the silver little slices up and down her arms that are dead and numb now. The urge to bolt for the bathroom makes her itchy all over, and her foot twists rapidly at the ankle in an effort to alleviate her discomfort. "I don't know. I think it made them feel like they were actually addressing a problem instead of making some fake, cop-out play. But that's all it really was. It didn't do shit for me." Violet hesitates, then shrugs. "We still ended up out here. Things are still pretty fucking broken. I don't know."

His hand moves over the one she had left fallen upon her bedspread, and his fingers are so warm around hers. Tate's grip is gentle, but firm, and she blushes when she looks up at him again. He's frowning at her, in concern, and in pity. It makes her tummy rumble.

"I'm really sorry, Violet," he says so softly her armhairs stand on end.

Her eyes are wet and she grimaces then looks down her body at her knees. She doesn't say anything, just lets him inspect her knuckles fixedly. Eventually, when her throat decides to cooperate and the corners of her eyes dry up, she wonders, "What about you?"

"What about me?"

Violet looks up at him, he's relinquished her hand, and he rolls over on his stomach, inadvertently (or perhaps purposely) shifting minutely closer to her in the process. She lifts her head to toss her hair out from under her neck. "How many therapists have you been to? Is my dad the first?"

The expression on his face is truly unreadable. Violet cannot discern it whatsoever. It should unnerve her, but it only fascinates her. "A few," he permits after a pregnant pause, and that's it.

She's not satisfied and she lifts herself up from the waist, propped up on both arms. "Well, then why are you seeing my dad?"

His eyes snap over her, and she's alarmed to see him glaring at her. That look is unfitting on his features, usually so kind and imploring and inquisitive when looks upon her. "I don't want to talk about that," is his short response, and he turns his attention to his feverish picking at the hangnail of his thumb. She hadn't noticed him doing it before now. "Let's talk about something else."

"You started it," she grumbles and eventually moves into a full sitting position, her legs curling up underneath her, Indian-style.

He stays quiet and doesn't make a move to look back, no matter how hard Violet stares at the side of his face. She's upset him, somehow, she knows. Her hand stretches out to tug at the fabric of his sweater, almost child-like in the motion, and it gets his attention. "Don't be like that," she pleads of him off his stern brow. "C'mon, Tate."

"Why are you asking?"

She shrugs and tilts her head, her hair tumbles down over her shoulder. "I don't know, I just want to know about you, I guess." He glances back down at his hands, away from her face. "I mean, you're always asking things about me. What, I can't ask about you?"

"My life's shitty," Tate offers with a significant lack of emotion. He's gotten so distant, now. Violet feels apologetic but she can't bring herself to say anything to the point. He must get it, because he turns his head up to see her again, and his eyebrows give in a little as he exhales. "My dad's a dirtbag who split when I was a kid, my mom's a cunt who spends her time chain-smoking and sucking and fucking her way to what she wants. God, I fucking hate her," it comes off as an afterthought, an angry, forceful breath and he tears off a jagged piece of skin at the corner of his nail. He lifts his thumb to his mouth and sucks gingerly at the sensitive skin he's broken into.

A different kind of silence passes over them now. Too much honesty and personal knowledge shared too early on. She feels for him, though, and she reaches for the hand he's nursing and he lets her, though he doesn't meet her eyeline. "She sounds like a bitch," Violet sympathizes, but he gives her no response other than the tightening of his fingers in her loose hands. She has the sense that she's being rejected, and she releases his hand with a heavy sigh. "I'm sorry I asked, okay? I get it - it's personal. I shouldn't have intruded."

Her tone and inclination appear to jar him out of whatever pitiful reverie he had been engrossed in, as Tate pushes himself up abruptly with open palms into a mirrored sitting position across from her. "Fuck it," his mouth upturns into a smile, one obviously forced, but it's rooted in genuineness. It eases the tension, and she's relieved. "I'm kind of being a douche, right?"

"Let's just talk about something else."

"You have a boyfriend back in Boston?" It's off his tongue before her sentence is barely finished.

Violet startles and flushes brightly. "Dude. Seriously? I thought we were done with personal."

He cracks a wild sort of smirk, all teeth. "So, is that a no?"

"Why do you care?" She plucks at her comforter and knows why he cares, of course. She doesn't miss his careful glance up and down her torso, this time.

"C'mon, Vi."

"No," Violet grudgingly forces the answer out of herself. "I mean, I went on a couple dates with some guys from school. Nothing serious."

"What's serious?" He ventures with a nosy sort of curiosity. "First base?"

"God, you're being rude," she scowls and he grins. "What about you?"

Tate shrugs. "One girl, freshman year. We dated for like a week. She was a fucking idiot."

"Why'd you date her, then?"

"She was pretty hot," his shoulders circle idly. "And she let me in her pants. Why else?"

"So gross, you're such an ass," there's a part of her that wants to laugh, but her stubborn streak just won't let her. "How can you even talk like that?"

"What's wrong with that?" He does laugh, seemingly almost offended by her own offense. Tate's eyes shrink as he studies her carefully, and that grin stretches further, it's almost feral. "Fuck, you're still a virgin, aren't you?"

Her face is hot with embarrassment and Violet knows she must be burning red. When he starts guffawing so heartily, she reaches behind her and pitches a pillow at his head with unbridled fury, though he catches it easily. "You're a pig, Tate. Seriously."

"Oh, come on," he hugs the pillow to his chest, settles his chin atop it, and his smile shrinks into something kind. "You know I'm fucking with you."

She chooses to be brittle about it, anyway. "It's not that funny."

"I know it's not. I'm not saying it is."

"You laughed," she hitches both eyebrows pointedly, and he groans and tosses the pillow aside.

"You're being so sensitive. Stop being a girl." Tate eyes her and Violet glances to her bedroom window when she hears the car door slam outside.

"I _am_ a girl."

"I think it's cool you're a virgin," he presses earnestly. "You don't see that a lot these days. Most girls are just dumb sluts with no sense of pride or any kind of self-esteem. They fuck around with whatever piece of meat will take them, to try and make themselves feel better about how empty they really are on the inside. It's pretty disgusting, and pathetic-"

"Oh, god, stop it. Just stop talking about it," she shrinks back into her other pillows and reaches for her Marlboros with a tilt of her chin to the window. "I think my dad's here."

He watches her charily as she lights the cigarette and willfully deviates from the topic at hand. He falls in line, because he has to. "You haven't told him, have you?"

"That we're still hanging out?" Violet blows out a stream of smoke through flared nostrils. "No way. He'd kill you and ground me."

Tate falls silent and Violet puffs away at her vice. There they sit, observing one another, as Vivien and Ben's dull voices sound below the floorboards of her bedroom.

He's the first one to speak. "My session's in forty-five minutes."

There's a certain suggestion under his observation; he doesn't make it plain, she doesn't even think he knows he makes it, but Violet has a hunch that wiggles inside her stomach, and she draws another hit from her cigarette as her toes curl beneath her. "What do you want to do?"


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note: **Everyone loves a good timeline, and I think I found my place for this fic, at lease the first two parts. Hopefully, it works, 'cause I see this and chapter 1 taking place around the beginning of the Halloween episode, when things are better between them after "Home Invasion."

I don't anticipate how long this is going to go, probably not for very many chapters, but it's fun to write these one-shot/two-shot kind of deals. So maybe I'll write a bunch and tuck them into this fic. We'll see.

Thanks to everyone for your wonderful reviews! It's such a comfort to know I'm doing them right for all of you. :D

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

"I want to kiss you."

The music evacuates from between her ears. It's subdued and muffled, and she can barely distinguish what artist is even on rotation as all she can see and hear (they make a reverberation so dense in her senses) are those dark eyes boring right through, right down to her soul, and the subtle way his mouth parts to reveal just the barest hint of teeth as his declaration burns at the tips of her ears.

At first, she kind of laughs – or it probably sounds like a laugh; she hears it, and it sounds like a laugh to her. She's disbelieving and a little alarmed off his lack of hesitation and the way he's absolutely holding her captive in his gaze. Part of her thinks he must be joking, because who just says things like that, but when his sincerity doesn't give way to humor, that wiggle from before blazes into a full unsettledness.

Violet moves up against her pillows, her spine rigid. "You … want to kiss me?"

"Can I?" His words nearly run right over her query, he's so eager to get them out and to get her answer. Tate follows her lead and straightens, as his hands round over his kneecaps and his fingers grip tight there.

Her chest feels hot. Violet blindly reaches for the mug on her bedside table, to dab out her dying cigarette, and she wonders if he's even blinked yet because she knows she hasn't. She squints at him then, the lustful rush in her belly thinning with a fresh and cooling dose of apprehension. "…Why?"

"Why?"

The mug clinks as she pushes it back to its place, her eyes never leaving his. "Why do you want to kiss me?"

Tate seems to bend away at the defensive stance she assumes, her folded arms and furrowed brows intimidating him – but he's quick to understand, to see that she sees an angle to his motive, because he slowly leans inward once again with a sturdy determination in the set of his jaw.

"Because I like you," his clarification is authentic but kept low, and she trembles and has to really listen to him speak. "A lot." He breaks, his gaze dropping lower down her face, and Tate sighs through his nose. "And your mouth looks so soft."

That flash illuminates her again, starting low and whizzing high up to the very top of her head. Violet breathes out her open mouth, that he's still watching, and she swallows. The gap between them seems vast, only filled by the leisure tinkling from her iPod dock and his heavy stare, and hastily she decides. She nods. "Okay."

He doesn't verbalize, but his expression clearly adjusts into one of vague surprise. Gradually, though, his lips begin to curl, and he's smiling that boyish smile that makes her flutter on the inside. "Okay, what?"

Violet must be crimson, by now. He wants her to say it; she hates how warm she feels, it's almost dizzying. "Okay, kiss me."

"Do you really want me to?" Now, he's just messing with her.

She glares at him, but that smoldering inside her is not at all tempered, not with him still looking at her like that.

There's a gleam in his eyes that tells her he still wants to play. But he must know he'll be pushing his luck if he tries anymore, because he shuts up like she wants him to and crawls forward rather predatorily on the bed. His incline toward her is agonizing and her insides rattle in expectation and Violet keenly opts to meet him halfway, arching her neck and wetting her lips when his breath hits her face.

She hasn't had a moment like this before, not with any other boy or anything at all. It's palpable and electric, like kismet or something, and when his mouth meets hers, everything drones and dulls out around her. She hums into him when he exhales out through his nostrils and he pushes in closer, accepting the invitation into her personal space. One hand circles neatly about her jaw and ear, and his other balances his weight by her thigh as she just sits and tries to focus and remember how this is supposed to go. His tongue is unexpected as it darts out, startling her mouth open and she gasps delicately at his gentle intrusion. She's pretty sure he smiles, she can feel the creases.

Violet lets him lead and lets him lower himself over her, her legs unfolding as her back settles deeper into the cushions behind and below her. She frames him absentmindedly with her right leg at his hip and her hand settles at his elbow, unsure of where it should go. It's a lethal mixture of riotous emotions fizzying up inside her; an inherent cautiousness when it comes to him, teenage yearning racketing angrily in her joints, and nervousness that he seems far more confident in his ministrations than she does in proper placement of her body parts.

But Tate seems content, lost in his unhurried exploration of her mouth and her reciprocated, albeit tentative, search of his. He comes up from her lips almost grudgingly and sighs again, lids heavy as he looks down upon her. It makes her feel so small and he's so very much bigger than her. "You okay?"

Violet hasn't even the option of responding before he settles his face into the crook of her neck, planting dawdling, wet kisses into her skin. She inhales sharply through her teeth when he finds her ear and he grins, she knows, and begins a teasing there, taking his time. She squirms, not at all of her own volition, and her hands fists on the bedspread and into his sweater at his sluggish attention. "Tate," she huffs, agitated, into his curls, and he chuckles and it tickles and she wriggles underneath him.

"Has anyone ever done that to you?" He whispers against her cheek and she turns into his mouth, a surge of something indefinable pulsing through her and making her braver. Tate makes a noise that she likes and she moves to half lean over him, and he turns her face to access to that sweet spot again, and her flesh buzzes all over.

"Have you been like this with a lot of boys?" His voice is thick and makes her clench her thighs together tightly and her right hand bunches at the collar of his shirt. "Violet?"

Violet shakes her head and her other hand falls behind his head at the base of his neck to steady herself. "No, Jesus, just stop asking me."

Tate chuckles. Sooner or later, he does taper off in his lazy sucking (she loses count of the minutes) and he moves to nuzzle affectionately up into her hair, his hand smoothing over the place where her spine and pelvis meet. "I was right. You are soft," he observes and she pulls back to look into his face. He is mesmerized by her, his hand reaching up to push away the curtain of her blonde. "I didn't really think you'd let me kiss you."

"Why wouldn't I?" She feels like she needs to whisper.

His shoulders lift and his thumb strokes over her reddened lower lip, eyes following the trail. "I never know what you're thinking. You're hard to read sometimes."

Violet rolls her eyes at that and tips away from his torso, the back of her head hitting her pillows in the most pleasant way. He follows and turns onto his side to face her, smiling when she says, "You're not exactly an open book, either."

"I guess not." Silence floats, and then he drops down onto his back beside her, settling into her mattress and pillows, like he belongs there. His shoulder touches hers, and Violet can still feel her body vibrating. "You know, you're a good kisser."

"Thanks?" She awkwardly responds, because she doesn't know what the hell you say to something so blatant, and he grins out of the corner of his eye at her, happy to have caught her. "Because that's not a strange thing to say."

"Well, you seem weird about it. I'm just saying."

"We just made out on my bed, Tate," Violet throws her hands up into the air. It elicits a smirk from him. "It_ is_ weird."

"Why?"

She turns to find at him looking at her. This is how it always seems to go. He's already watching her, and she only just notices. "You don't think it's weird?"

Tate shrugs and reaches to draw out a lock of her hair. He takes the thick bundle and inspects her follicle ends, then curls it halfway up his finger when he reroutes his gaze into her own. "No," he waits to respond, as though he takes time to assess every facet of her question. "I meant it when I said I like you. When people like each other, this is what they do."

"I know how it works," she swats his hand away and lets him catch her fingers with a grin. "You don't have to explain it to me, I'm not five."

"No, you're not," it has a joking undertone and she welcomes the press of his lips to her shoulder blade with an inhale. But it sinks, like a stone in her stomach, as he mumbles between her shoulder and neck, "I have to go."

"Yeah," and it comes back to her, and she runs shaky fingers through her hair. He sits up and extends a polite hand to her, drawing her up when her tiny palm slides into his. Before she gets the chance to utter a farewell, he has both hands around her face and his lips claim over hers. It lasts longer than any goodbye she's ever known, and when he withdraws, he appears just the slightest broken over it.

"Can I see you tomorrow?"

Violet nods, her lips quirking as his face hovers near. "…yeah, maybe." And he grins at her feigned indecision.

It's a tug of war inside him that plays vividly against his features, but eventually Tate grits his teeth and leaps up from her bed, spinning for the door with a two-finger salute as his gesture of valediction.

Later on that evening, her dad asks her about Tate, when he catches her in the hallway, and wonders whether or not she's seen him lately. He seems perturbed, distracted, and just the littlest bit coarse with her when he inquires. She can't lie directly, instead fibbing half-heartedly that yeah, she's seen him enter and exit the house. Violet hopes he can't see through her, because she feels pretty transparent.

He at least pretends to buy it and pulls her to him in a tight one-armed hug. "I worry about you." He mumbles against her crown that he loves her, though he doesn't give her the opportunity to reply before he's left her there in the hall.

She resolves to ask Tate again what he and her dad talk about, and why he seemed so anxious today.

But the next day comes, and all they do is bullshit in the basement and work to perfect their secret conversations.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note: **Okay, I was REALLY nervous writing from Tate's perspective, because there's so many different takes and possible points of view to engage when looking at him and his intentions, and I'm still torn with what I really believe lies at the core of his character. The only thing I know for sure is that he loves Violet and loves being WITH Violet, so I chose that to be the framing of his character in this episode.

Set again during the Halloween timeline. Also, I'm beginning to realize this show makes the concept of time its bitch. Or maybe it's just me, and I'm time's bitch. Whatever. I see this being the Saturday before Halloween (since Halloween was a Monday this year), with them meeting midnight on Sunday morning, and then their date is Monday.

….Right? I should stop analyzing. Who analyzes points like this? Crazy people, that's who.

ANYWAY. Thanks for everyone's lovely reviews and encouragement and feedback, you guys are just the bee's knees. Again, here's hoping you all find this suitable and enjoyable.

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

When she's away, his days drag on like heartbreaking eternities. He doesn't know what he should do with himself anymore if it doesn't involve her. He's forgotten how to be alone.

It makes him wish he could die all over again – he fucking might as well.

And god, his innards burn ferociously when she's not close at hand; he writhes inside. Those compulsive thoughts he confesses upon Dr. Harmon (in the safety of daylight and with the knowledge that she's lingering only a staircase above him) break free from those confines he would swear to even his shadow he's been trying to work on, and all that darkness and carnage and horror filters in without her there to guide him back.

Those thoughts aren't what she needs. They're not what she wants. And he's starting to realize that all he wants is to **be** all that she wants. He flourishes in that feeling that caring for her erupts within him; he exists now only for that warm and trusting gaze she casts upon him during their recent lazy afternoons together. When he recalls her terror and fury from that first week (he wills the memories away, but they never dissipate), her contorted face and her shaky hands shoving him away, he aches and aches. It is regret and shame that he felt and still feels, and it took him a long time to find the words, because he honestly couldn't remember such heavy emotions ever settling under him before that moment she had declared furiously, _"I never want to see you again!"_

But the instant he sees her from his roost in her bedroom window, it's all worth it - worth the wait, worth the mind-numbing hours that he has to wrestle with himself and the others, worth it all. He sees her, blonde locks floating in the fair autumn breeze as she strolls up the walk, and it's like the whole world brightens and becomes new to him. He swells inside, and he never wants it to go away, because he can't imagine what it would be like without it.

She ditches her satchel and a plastic shopping bag on the brick ledge she has taken to as her secondary hide-out, a nook on the far side of the porch that he remembers very well. Cautious, she peers about the yard, undoubtedly looking to see if her parents are around. When she knows she's in the clear, Violet backs up and hops up on to the ledge of the patio, digs about in her bag, and retrieves her fresh pack of smokes and lighter with a satisfied smile.

He's happy to just witness her being pleased in that second, before he decides he has to be known, he can't wait another beat to be a part of her world again.

"Hey," he greets, and she spooks, and he grins. "What's up?"

Violet notices his self-satisfied grin, attributed to his ever-growing quest to startle and scare the fearless daughter, and he thoroughly enjoys her feisty glare. "God, lurk much?"

"I was waiting for you." He bounces up on his toes and perches beside her.

"Creeper," she teases and he'd sour if he didn't see the flattered smile she tries to conceal by busying herself with unwrapping her cancer box. He snatches the lighter before she can grab for it, and she leans in so he can light the end of her cig. She sweetly inhales, and then puffs out. "What for?"

Tate nods at her bag, instead. "How'd you get those?"

Violet smirks and exhales a thin string of silver. "Fake ID. I got one from back home." She nudges him with her elbow, and his eyes lift from her mouth, where he had been studying her mechanical inhale-exhale. "Why were you waiting for me?" She inquires again, and he shrugs.

"Bored."

She scoffs and shakes her head. "You _really _need to get a hobby, Tate."

"Yeah, I've been working on that," he utters with evident undertones, tilting closer to her neck until her skin twitches from his proximity.

Violet leans away and blows smoke in his face. God, he loves it. "Don't do that."

"Why not?"

"What if my dad shows up?"

"I'll hide?" Off Violet's skeptical look, he rolls his shoulders. "Or not."

Her mouth purses, and she turns away to stare hard into the road that stretches across from them. He's concerned by the knitting of her eyebrows, and he patiently watches her work away at the cigarette between her fingers.

"School was total shit yesterday," she eventually announces, and Tate instantaneously bristles at the notion. "I don't know what's worse, being actively bullied by those snotty bitches or everyone avoiding me like I'm a walking contagion. Either way, you weren't kidding – it totally sucks there." Her stare begins to glaze over in a way he doesn't like, and he wishes he knew where she went.

Her musings make him fume, and he chews at the inside of his cheek until he tastes copper to abate this uncalming within him. There are a million different vengeful scenarios that play out in his brain, he wants to be her hero but in the worst way, but he's learned his lesson there. Still, it takes everything in him not to flare, and he's sure he's vibrating right into her, because Violet turns upon him with a slanted look.

Tate's mouth thins into an indecipherable line as he tries to save face. "Look, they're morons. All of them," she rolls her eyes and he presses on certainly, plants a firm, warm hand upon her thigh and squeezes. "I'm serious, Violet. Just ignore it; they'll regret it later. You're so much better than what any of those cocksuckers could even hope to be. Don't waste your time worrying about what they think. They're fucking footnotes."

He wants to say so many other things - gory, bloody, hateful, loathing things - about these useless beings that get a place in her life, all of whom seem to be hell-bent on sucking the vigor right out of her soul, and he just can't fucking understand it. How is it that those thankless assholes get undue, ample time with her, while he gets only stolen minutes? They don't appreciate her at all, when they should appreciate everyfuckingthing about her, like he does, and all he wants is to spend forever with her. It makes him sick to his stomach. He is beside himself when he thinks of the injustice of it.

But he reins it in because she still watches him with cautious, guarded eyes and that hurts him too deeply. However, when Violet blinks now, it's all gone away. Her mouth lifts into an appreciative smile, and he opens his arm to her. She dashes out her cigarette and flicks the stub into the bushes at her feet, and she shimmies across the ledge and under his wing. When she nestles up against him, it makes him feel whole. She fits perfectly, and everything is right, in him and with her. It all just stops around him, and he breathes in deeply.

Violet's fingers pick at the fraying of his jeans at his knee, and she tilts her head up to look at his face. "Did people ever fuck with you in school?"

Tate glances down, briefly, then back out across the expanse of the yard. He frowns in hazy recollection. "No." Then he rethinks and cants his head. "Not really. Kind of was under the radar for a while."

"But...?"

"Things got … extreme," he lowers his voice, not really wanting her to be a part of this, and he vacillates on whether or not he wants to share. He compromises with himself and makes it vague, instead. "Some shit happened. Whatever." He looks down at her with a reassuring smile. "It's not important, now."

He can feel her still and wait, but she surprisingly accepts it without a follow-up. She's looking at him thoughtfully now, considering something.

"I don't think I'm gonna go on Monday," Violet fills him in on what's going on inside her head. "It's exhausting, just thinking about dealing with it over and over again."

"Then don't," it's out of his mouth before he has time to consider the repercussions of where he's ushering her. But he goes with it anyway, because she looks up at him searchingly, as though his permission is necessary. "Everyone deserves at least one sick day, right?"

"God, I hate faking sick. My parents see right through me—what? What's so funny?"

He starts barking out laughter in the middle of her sentence, at her innocence, because holy fuck, she's so adorable, and she draws out from under his arm with a frown. Tate calms and starts earnestly, "Violet, just_ don't go_. Do you really think your parents would even notice if you left or not?" She's staring like he might've grown a second head, and he continues, "I mean, are they even there half the time when you leave in the morning anyway?"

There's suddenly a bitterness that leaps into those haunting pools, her gaze widening in slow realization of his point. "Oh my god," she stutters out on a laugh. "You're ... so right. I mean, they're so busy ruining each other's lives, they probably wouldn't even wonder whether I'm at home or at school or, fuck, doing lines in a drug den on the south side." Her mouth falls open at this revelation unfolding unto her, and he loves the spark igniting behind her eyes. She nods slowly, then a bit faster when the adrenaline of it hits, and he can feel her resentment boiling over into something else, something determined and steely. "Yeah. Yeah, you know what? I'm gonna do it. Screw it, I'm not going back."

"Do it. What's to lose, right?"

Violet keeps right on nodding along to the devil in her ear. He is enamored by all of her. "Yeah. Hey," she brightens further and he feeds off of her delight. "You should totally come by and hang out with me next week. We can play hooky together."

He wants to leap up at her request, like a capricious child on Christmas morning unwrapping their mound of presents with unprecedented fervor. But Tate beams down at her instead, placing some loose golden strands behind her ear, and her expression is tamed into placated affection. "I'd like that. You got any good board games?"

"Uh, _sh'yeah_. We used to do family night, before things got fucked up. All the greats; Battleship, Scrabble—"

"Oh, god," he groans and slaps a hand against the brick beneath him, and Violet starts at his sudden animation. "You have no idea what you're getting into."

"What? With Scrabble?" She snorts and shoots him an unconvinced sneer when he nods confidently and preens at her. "Oh. Yeah. I'm sure you're a real wordsmith."

"Hey, hey… you don't have to worry, Vi," his voice drops, his tone soothing yet patronizing. A tender hand cups around her shoulder. "I promise I'll go easy on you the first time."

Violet stares at him, an eyebrow gradually arching in a comical fashion. She eventually settles on a half-hearted, "Asshole." And he smiles.

"Hey, what're you doing later?"

"You mean, today?" He nods and Violet shrugs, glancing at her satchel. "Well, I_ did_ have homework, but whatever, screw that." She looks back to him. "So, nothing, I guess."

"Well," Tate grins and jumps off the ledge, and his hand extends to her. She takes it and lets him help her down. "If you're not too busy with your 'nothing', do you want to hang out tonight?"

"Wait, where are you going now?"

"I just have some shit." He watches her dutifully pluck her cigarette butt from the bushes and pocket it, then swing her bag over her shoulder and grab up the plastic one in her fist. They begin the trek toward the side kitchen door, and he follows her, keeping a wary eye on the windows along the path. There's no telling who's listening or watching, seen or unseen, and he'd rather keep these matters between he and Violet private from all other parties. He doesn't want to invite anyone else in; this is only his. She returns to him her undivided attention when he tacks on, "But maybe you can meet me in the basement later?"

She makes a face and doesn't attempt to hide it, and off his confusion, she sighs and reshoulders her bag. "The basement, really? Why do you always want to hang out down in that rank hole?"

"I don't know," he mumbles, and notices her watching him with a suspicious eye. He finds the smile meant for her again and sidles up close to her, his hands falling at her waist. "You don't think it's at least kind of cool? All that neat old shit, the ambience-"

"Oh, come _on_," she prods him in the chest and shifts imperceptibly closer into him, her chin tilting up with a smugness he adores. "You just like it because my parents don't go down there. You don't want to get caught, because you know my dad would beat the shit out of you."

"I don't care," and he really doesn't. His fingers squeeze at her hip, and he dips his head in to speak over her lips, "Let him find me."

He doesn't think kissing her will ever get boring or ever get old. It's always new, always exhilarating. She makes a soft little noise that thrills him, and his hand circles further around her back to hold her within his space. She fills him with only the best feelings, things he can't name and can't place or has never understood up until his time with her. All he wants is to keep them rushing, keep it pumping through him, keep him alive.

Because that's how he feels, when he's with her, as she pulls from his mouth but stays unbearably close, lips wet and eyes dewy with a desire he either mirrors or exceeds – roaring, thriving, alive.

"What time do you want to meet?" She murmurs, and he thrums with a heightened level of anticipation.

"Midnight?"

Violet nods in assent, and he wraps his arms completely about her lithe figure. She's so small; she docks right up into him with such ease. Her arms curl about his neck in return, and Tate honestly can't remember the last time he hugged anyone. It's so subtle an emotion that washes over him at such awareness, and he closes his eyes against it and tightens his limbs around her, to savor it all. He's impossibly grateful that she lets him in, and he shudders as she presses her face into his shoulder.

He eventually has to unwind from her, and it twinges painfully when she detaches from him at last. Conscious of his weighty staring, Violet tucks her hair behind her ear and blushes. "Anyway," she gestures toward the door and tries not to recognize that pained look in his eyes that always accompanies her departing. "My mom's waiting. She's probably freaking out that I've been gone this long."

Tate nods and pushes his hands into his pockets, ducking his head toward the door. "Yeah. Go on. I'll see you later."

Her hand hovers over the doorknob and she hesitates, watching him for an enduring instant, before she turns it and maneuvers herself inside. He is flooded by the sensation all at once, her exit depleting him of all energy and that liveliness he had felt within her presence. His chest is desperately heavy and all parts of him want to collapse from the loss of her.

But he is rejuvenated, at least in part, with knowledge he will be with her again in just a few hours, and he'll find something to occupy him during the in-between until she appears and he's a part of her bright existence once again.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** ... so I guess I'm not immune to slightly smutty Violate. Oops. Hope you guys don't mind my foray into these waters. But, hey, like the summary says: teenagers will be teenagers, and that's a big part of this fic. So, I guess I'm bumping the rating up, because my plot bunnies are no longer innocent, holding-hands-and-smiling types, HA.

Speaking of sexy Violate fics, if you haven't read stuff by **Gray Glube** or **ohyellowbird**, what is the matter with you? GO FORTH AND LUST, FRIENDS. Also, **Tjoek** is writing something wildly brilliant, and you all should be in on it. Sharing is caring, y'all.

As usual, you guys have been awesome with your reviews, please continue to let me know what you think!

_PS:_ Violet mentions "Old Spice Guy" in reference to Luke. This was inspired by the amazing YouTube vidder **hurleybirdprod**'s "**American Horror Story Crack #1**" video, found here: y-o-u-t-u.b-e/Y5HvOyPjmSU (obviously without the hyphens), and make sure you have a change of undies, because you will probably piss yourself laughing. Okay. I'm done now.

_PPS:_ ...I really miss this show, you guys. :(

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

The giddiness foams right into her brainstem straight from her heart. Violet is silly with it as she jogs up the basement stairs, her head swimming and her palms damp and tingling with an excitement she can barely contain, but she does, because her hard-girl façade has to stay in tact even without an audience.

Or, at the very least, until she's secure within the privacy of her bedroom.

She honestly didn't expect him to agree to the whole 'date' thing – she even felt pretty hokey suggesting it. But when he accepted the notion with little to no hesitation, and certainly no judgment, taking her hands and squeezing, and all he did was stare right into her … man, that really got her, you know?

Violet was glad it was dark. Pink was all over her, she knows it even now.

When she hits the landing, she tries her best to shut the basement door without a creak, though the house is ever selectively helpful, and it betrays her with a broken, rusty cry. She winces and freezes, thinking she hears shuffling above her. But the house quiets into a numbing hum, and she slips her flats off and carries them between her fingers as she slinks around the staircase railing.

"What are you doing, young lady?"

Her spine goes cold, and Violet whips around to find her mother exiting the kitchen. She's got an expectant look on her face and Violet's been familiar with this situation, with that expression - raised eyebrows, shrunken mouth with sucked in cheeks, head tilted in a question all moms already have the answer to, because they were teenage girls once, too.

"Uhm … just, y'know. Hanging out."

"In the basement."

Violet clears her throat and resists the urge to glance backward. "Uh, yeah."

"It's after _one_, Violet. You needed to be in bed over two hours ago. What have you been doing?"

She rolls her eyes and slackens her stance to lean up against the banister, immediately put off, her delightful mood thoroughly spoiled at the promise of a lecture. "I wasn't sneaking back in, if that's what you're thinking. I swear I've been in the house the whole time. What's the issue?"

"We're _not_ doing this again," Vivien rounds on her daughter with a brandished forefinger, and Violet rankles at the implied threat. "I'm not doing this waiting up for you at all hours thing. We did it in Boston," even though her mouth moves to open, her mother's swift and severe tones cut through any hope of defiance, "And that was fun for a little while, but after the things we've been through in this house? No. Absolutely not."

Violet wants to stamp her foot, but she registers the move as childish. She settles on curling her toes in and sucks in a breath between her teeth, closing her eyes, counting to five. "Mom. I'm telling you: I was just – in- the – basement."

"And what could you possibly be doing down there after midnight?" Vivien steps closer, and Violet shrinks defensively. "Please, tell me. I'm sure it's very exciting."

She roots around through her many acquired excuses and white lies, the typical teenage protocol, things she's used before, ideas she has in back stock, but nothing seems fitting or believable – certainly not in this place. Eventually, she has no option but to shrug, and she levels her mother with a cool glare. "Tate came to see me."

Her mother appears nonplussed, unsure of how to address or respond in kind, and it obviously was not the expected answer. It makes Violet feel a little bit like she won, and she rubs her shoulder blade hard into the banister edge when Vivien finally finds her voice. "Violet," she starts out soft, and Violet already knows where this is going. "Are you being serious with me? You know you can't be having him over here like that-"

"Why not? It's not like we were doing anything. Besides, I thought you were cool with him after what happened with those psychos." She leans in, reminding her with cheek, "Remember, when he saved our lives?"

"That's not the point. It's inappropriate," Violet rolls her eyes and her mother sighs. "And do you know what your father would do if he found out? What if he had been the one to find you out of bed like this?"

She's a little daring tonight, and Violet frowns, lifts a shoulder limply, as though affecting nonchalance. "And what if he found out about the way you were eye-fucking that Old Spice security guy today?" Vivien's fallen mouth and consequent glower indicates Violet has not only crossed but has leapt clean over a fine, fine line. But it gives her an out, and she hastily takes it with only the slightest pang of remorse. "Whatever. I'm going to bed now, so you don't have to 'worry' anymore."

"Violet," Vivien calls after her retreating form, but when Violet pauses halfway up the staircase, she can't really meet her mother's gaze. "It's just- I just want you to be careful, honey. You know how your father feels about this guy, and after everything that's happened lately here … yeah, I do worry."

Violet nods, but only half-listens, more preoccupied with a different set of consequences. "So, are you going to tell him?" She finally looks back down to her mother, whose frown softens just slightly.

"…No. No, I won't tell him. But you can't be doing this again, do you understand?"

There's a traded stare of mutual understanding, and Vivien turns away first, into the kitchen again, and Violet starts back for her bedroom, all too eager to be apart from this confrontation.

Her door clicks behind her, and the sound is immensely gratifying. It's like the world shuts down, and it's such a relief. She doesn't bother with her lights, chucking her flats by the door as she blindly strips out of her tights and she yanks her dress over her head. The articles are tossed away and in a quick motion, her hair is bundled up into a loose pony, and she's clambering into bed. Her sheets sigh as she sinks into them, and it's a soothing flood through her body at the sense of being enveloped into cool darkness.

She rocks her head back against her pillows; they sigh too, and draw a good one out of her chest that is accented with a wet cough. One of these days, she reflects dazedly, she should probably drop that nasty habit of hers, but then her mouth burns, and she kind of wants another quick smoke before bed. But she abstains, and lets her lashes flutter and her hand drift from habit over her belly and down her pelvis as her mind begins nighttime wanderings toward slumber.

Right down to her toes, her whole body feels heavy from the weight of the day, and in large part from just the sheer exhaustion of being around _him_. She thinks of him, blonde hair, dark roots, coal eyes, shiny teeth. She has to study him real close to find out where his pupils begin and irises end, they're so very dark. But he's so intense, his zeal is oftentimes a bit overwhelming, but she never notices until he's away and she's alone again and it all catches up with her.

There's something about the way he just kind of feeds off her energy, but she doesn't really mind – she likes the way it looks on his face, that rapture and his stare, like he's enthralled by everything she does. It takes a lot out of a girl, but she doesn't mind sharing that with him. She likes sharing things with him. There's a lot she wants to share.

A charming heat starts lacing its way through her slowly, and she groans in exasperation into the side of her pillow, not really having the energy, but she kind of wants to, anyway. Sluggishly, her fingers begin a familiar dance under her comforter, and she exhales upon flickering, intermittent thoughts of him, of them, of what could be tomorrow. She thinks idly of where they might go; she picks a movie theatre, or no, just someplace vague and dark. His hand slinks up her thigh and she lets him, even though they're in public and anyone can see.

Scenarios change because she doesn't really find that one plausible or all that appealing, as she parts her legs a little wider and arches her neck, wrist beginning to tense. Instead, she thinks of him on top of her in her bed, like before, huffing in her ear and asking if she's ever done this before, and that one works better. Violet rips at the flaking of her lower lip as her restless hips try to find a complimentary pattern to the rolling pads of her fingertips and the advent of her other hand, and she fidgets against the dark of her room and her itinerant mind.

Moonlight filters through her heavy curtains. She wants to be outside with him.

Her shoulders would scrape into the brick, she thinks of the smell of wet dirt and fresh pine and him, and her hips cant to the side when she hits a good spot and every sense collides appropriately. She only remembers what his breathless hums in her ear and sighs against her mouth sound like, so she thinks about those noises instead of trying to create something new that might ruin it. But she knows what she'd sound like and she gasps with a tremble and a reserved little moan, thinking of how his hands would pull and push her as her own begin to lose their steady pacing in the present. She presses hard with both, so maybe it'll bruise tomorrow, and she whines out loud because whatever, this fucking house is huge, no one could hear her, and even if they could, she's been feeling braver the longer she knows him.

She sucks in a tight breath and holds as the liquid heat begins to uncoil inside her and her brain burns out wildly into a whole different image she could never admit to, or even pretend to remember, of being under him, sleek latex, splintered wood prickling unknindly against her back, and his hot mouth and body pressing so deeply into her own that she shivers right down to her core.

"_Finder's Keepers."_

She finally, finally breaks over it with a short, sharp catch in her throat, expelling air promptly, chest heaving, and she sinks into the mattress with a whimper. Agitated puffing and stars behind her eyelids and ten-ton weights settling in her overwrought joints, she curls her legs up and flattens her thighs together as she rolls over on her side. Her hands slip up to tug a pillow down and into her chest, and she pants into the soft cotton as her body cools and pulses warmly, lovingly. Before too long, she's off and away, the only memory in her head one of him staring, hypnotizing, and she smiles, happy to think of tomorrow.

And of course she doesn't know it, because she never knows it, he's there in the shadows beyond the stretch of her bed's outline, absolutely engrossed in all that is her. He's proud of himself; he wouldn't let himself be privy to the whole show, just the part that really counted, when he heard her breath hitching in that divinely nuanced way he trembles at and recognizes now as her coming, that's when he slipped in under cover of night and watched, enraptured and amazed by her every little thing. He couldn't resist; after all, he's only human.

He wants to pet her hair back when she curls over, wants to slide in and hold her, feel between her limbs to see what she's done, wants to claim her bitten, swollen, stung mouth that parts now in even, shallow breathing.

But what he wants and what she wants are two entirely different things in this regard, and in many others, and he's just going to have to be patient like he has been being. He's proud of himself, yeah, he's been doing really good lately, because there's things that riot inside him and dare him forward, but he's better than that, than all of them, and it's only because of her.

Though, he does think Doctor Harmon would be proud too, and he smirks.

Tate takes his time finding his usual seat, the plush brown leather chair angled under a window in her room, moving through the edges of her room until he does settle, gaze steadfast on her resting figure. It makes him immeasurably glad, to be her audience of one, even if she doesn't always know it. For a second, he debates with himself which is better – Violet asleep, or Violet awake (this is a game he always plays by himself during these hours, different debates on which part of her is better, but his opinion always shifts, because he can't pin it down, there's too much of her to just _choose_.) He supposes it's the latter, because while she is everything beautiful and precious in the nighttime, something innocent and pure and something he wants to cradle, it is her fire and light that sustain him overall, and she doesn't burn when she sleeps.

He doesn't bother trying to flatter himself with ideas of what lies behind her closed eyes, whether dreaming or working herself over like before, but he's pretty sure it's him, and that bolts right through him with pleasure and pride. If he thought she'd tell him, he'd ask her what she sees, what makes her squirm, and he'd share in kind with her. Boldly, hand resting on the seam of his jeans, he thinks of maybe tomorrow night, and those creeping crawlers under his skin put in their two cents and he willfully ignores them with only the slightest fisting of his hand.

Because what they tell him he needs is not at all what _she_ needs, and he's satisfied enough in simply contemplating upon them rather than acting out these days, so long as she stays near to make him remember why this way is better.

So, he just waits with her until dawn when she finally rises from woozy dreaming, her head throbbing, and her knees banging into things as she stumbles out of bed. Her string of belligerent curses down the hall makes him smile, and he lets his eyes close upon the sounds of her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Author's Note:** You guys, I love writing for them. This fandom is so great, and so are all the other authors out there. Some y'all should know about: **scarlettwoman710**'s "Drain Me", **whodreamedit**'s "Bleeds to an End", and as always, anything by **ohyellowbird** and **GrayGlube**.

But, as you all could tell from the last chapter, it's time for angst and drama. But I had A LOT of fun writing this one, covering Violet's last living week. Kind of miserable, but after rewatching that episode, wtf, that girl looked like the walking definition of misery. Poor Violet. And Tate. And everyone. Wahh. Good stuff will be back next chapter, though, promise!

Thanks for your reviews and support! You guys are awesome! :D

**Warning:** This chapter contains mild drug use. Viewer discretion is advised.

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

She's slept maybe five hours since her world came crashing down around her, since Pandora's Box sprang open to reveal to her the ugliest, terrible truths. It's like everything is spinning on a top, she's losing her balance, and it's unhinging her day by day.

The internet has been her worst enemy yet, coupled with Constance, hours pledged to Google searches that turn up all of the same information she's already ingested, regurgitated, and swallowed whole again. She searches in vain to find some other answer, a second opinion, but it's all the same hollow dialogue, reports copy and pasted from standard news outlets, all the same, over and over, until she's dizzy from staring at the pixels for too long.

She hasn't bothered eating anything since she threw up two slices of toast from breakfast that second day, the willpower to bring herself to eat something has been completely obliterated from her senses.

All that comes up now when she hovers over the toilet bowl is bile and tears.

When Violet finally does tire, she lies on her floor and not the bed, picking at the scratches in the wood, until her nails break and the quick burns and bleeds painfully. It's harder, she wishes she could go dig out her razor blades, but every time she's tried to do it (three times now),_ he _keeps showing up in the mirror, watching her, harassing her, breathing on her, and she's not sure if it's really him or if her mind is finally playing tricks on her from sleep deprivation.

The plan to skip precise school days extends further than she had anticipated initially. It's more like she forgets to even go at all by the third day. Her parents don't notice; they're too busy avoiding each other or yelling or crying over their own woes, and she doesn't want to bother them and she doesn't think they'd care to hear how fucking crazy she is right now. Chances are they'd make it all about them, anyway.

She wakes up screaming, but it's soundless, she's gasping for air. Violet finds her father downstairs and weeps in arms, babbling about darkness and how it has her, she knows she must sound insane but she's unable to convey to him the weight of her dilemma and what she sees when she closes her eyes. He calms her and rubs loose circles on her back, kisses the top of her head, and she feels safe. He lets her sit in his office while he does paperwork, she falls asleep for a couple hours on the sofa, and she doesn't have dreams.

She's grateful, but she knows it won't last.

On the fourth day, she spots _him_ for real, walking through the halls of her house, peering through every door, looking for something. For her. Fear trips up her spine and she sprints back upstairs, unconcerned with noise and focused on escaping. A knock comes at her bedroom door only moments after she's closed it and locked it, and he calls out her name. She bites into the heel of her hand to keep from sobbing and sinks against her bedframe to the floor.

He accepts her lack of interest with a defeated sigh, tells her misses her, and his footfalls drift away.

She calls Leah later, promises her some meds in exchange for homework, they meet at the skate rink. Leah comments that Violet looks like trash, Violet tells Leah she's starting to look better. She owes her an apology, and Leah has an inkling as to why. She regales her with the story of the Great Red Dragon and the Woman Clothed with the Sun, dragons eating fucking babies and Satan's war on humankind. Violet thinks she feels teeth on her skin as she recites the story.

Leah trades her the bottle of sleeping pills and a couple of joints for two bottles of sample meds Violet had swiped from her dad's office.

"Are you sure you don't want this week's homework?"

Violet turns the pill bottle upside down and right side up, hypnotized by the delicate white orbs as they fall and rattle. "No. Fuck it. I don't know if I'm going back."

"You might want to try getting out a little more," Leah advises, and Violet only half hears, as she collects her things. "I doubt locking yourself up in that hellhole is doing you any favors."

She doesn't think she'd make it through the fifth day if it wasn't for the drugs. She had intended to save them, but she runs out of cigarettes and thinks she's gonna lose the rest of her mind if she doesn't smoke SOMETHING, so she opens a window in her room and perches in the comfy leather chair with her legs kicked over one arm and an ashtray by her head and lights one up.

It's thicker than she remembers from the scant few times she'd done it before, and she coughs and hacks and her eyes well up with burning tears. But it tingles into her limbs and muscles and she relaxes and feels pleasantly heavy in no time.

A knock sounds from her door, and she looks at the clock. Before she can drag her eyes back across the room, however, Tate's already slithering in, looking paler than she remembers, almost sickly. She blinks twice, takes another puff and holds, then exhales slowly in his direction. It's easier this time.

"Violet," he says, and she nods, because that's her name.

When his stare becomes too intense though, she looks away, to the lit end of her joint. "Hey."

"I haven't seen you since—"

"Yeah, I know."

He flinches at her curtness, and he curls in on himself, hands in his pockets. "Are you… mad at me, or something?"

Her eyes flick up to him, and she takes another long drag. She breathes out the heavy smoke just as languorously as she inhaled it, then smiles, but it's not a real smile, and he knows it too. It's empty, like how she feels inside, looking at him now. Her high is threatening to die, but her brain still buzzes sweetly, and her eyelids hang low as she takes him in and assess his question hazily. "Why would I be mad at you?"

Sometime between his shuffling at her door and her evasive response, he's maneuvered himself to the foot of her chair, sitting Indian style at the base, looking up at her in something like supplication.

Violet should startle at his proximity, but she doesn't, her whole body low-key and mellow and god, this is the best she's felt all week. She offers the paper stick to him with an arched eyebrow. She doesn't know why she assumes he'll take it, but just knows that he will.

And he does with a shrug and draws a hit, holds it, blows it out with a small cough, gives it back. "I don't know," he finally answers, and she almost forgets what her question was, until he supplies, "I guess, putting you in that kind of situation? I swear I don't know those freaks, Violet. I still don't know…"

The way he trails off, the shine in his eyes as he drifts away in misty recollection, the whole experience flooding back - it all makes her insides churn. She turns her face from him abruptly, a large lump swelling in her throat, and she wants to sob out loud but she can't while he's in here. So she settles on a vague, "It's whatever." And she waves her free hand, trying to brush it all away. "Just forget it."

"No," he presses a hand to her thigh and she shifts her leg so it falls away. He just stares, his lips thinning together. "You're mad."

"I'm not mad. I'm just…" She searches her bookcase across the room for an excuse, trying to muddle through the molasses of her brain. "Tired."

"You're lying. Tell me what's wrong. Let me help, Vi."

Violet looks down at him, and his eyes are absolutely pleading with her, searching for anything she can give him, and that he can return in kind. "It's nothing," she sighs, exasperated, and takes a last puff, puts it out in her ashtray, and nestles the back of her head against the arm of the chair. "Please, god, just stop talking about it."

They sit together in silence, him observing and her dozing on a comfy cloud of THC. But it becomes a bit much, his staring, and she shifts uncomfortably, peering at him from the corners of her eyes. "Dude, seriously, you're freaking me out."

He looks perplexed. "What did I do?"

"You just keep fucking looking at me."

"You're high." He squints.

And she blurts out a loud laugh, it's a little too hard, and she's happy and dazed. "Yeah," she smiles dreamily over at him, and he lights up at her attention and easier demeanor. "Yeah, I guess I am."

He tilts his head at her. "I didn't think you do that."

"What?"

"Drugs."

Violet rolls her shoulders and the leather makes a weird squeaky sound and she snorts. "Sometimes. Not a lot. Do you?"

"I used to," he admits, and he doesn't look shamed-face about it. "Kind of hard to get it, now."

"What did you do?"

"Uppers, mostly. Coke."

She makes a thoughtful noise and stares blearily up at the ceiling, unable to form a coherent, solid reply, now. It's all very fuzzy around her, and she feels so close to sleep she could swoon, if she could just get over that crest...

"Where'd you get it, anyway?"

He stirs her back into consciousness, and she's annoyed just a bit. "What?"

"Yours."

"Leah." She says the name pointedly and lolls her head to look at him.

He fidgets, fingers itching at the rug beneath him, and he doesn't look happy at that admission. "I didn't know you two were still talking-"

"She told me this wicked story yesterday," she talks over him, and he lets her, leaning in, because she knows he likes stories. "It's from the bible, it's about this red dragon, who's, like … waiting for this pregnant woman to have her baby, so he can fucking _eat _it." Violet roves her eyes over him. "You ever heard it?"

"No," Tate rests his head on the seat, by her hip. "Sounds cool. Keep going."

Her hand moves seemingly of its own volition to pass through his unruly blonde hair, and he tips his skull into the gesture. "Heaven basically wins that round. They kick the dragon's ass down to Earth, and he declares war or some shit on the woman and all her children."

"People." He looks up at her, and she nods. "Us."

"Do you believe in that?"

"What? The bible?" The notion seems laughable to him.

"The devil."

Tate considers, lifting a finger to follow the pattern stitched into the hem of her skirt, his eyebrows knit together. "Maybe," he finally permits. "But, I mean, there's evil everywhere. It's in all of us. Not just in one big, scary, biblical monster, y'know?"

Her stomach shudders in fear, in the truth of his words. "Do you think there's evil in me?"

His gaze is true, right through to her soul, and the tears in her eyes make him blurry. He kneels up, his hands circling her face, and his thumbs brush the droplets away from her skin and her eyelashes. "There's _nothing_ evil about you or in you, Violet," He hushes and she nods, shutting her eyes against his intensity. "You are the only good thing I've ever seen in this filthy fucking world. The _only_ good thing."

She sniffles and he kisses her mouth, chaste and good, and it hurts so much that she falls, tumbles, drops so quickly from her high and lands right back in this place she's been wallowing in all week. She breaks away from him first and turns her whole face toward the window, and she knows he's confused by this distance she puts between them when they had been so close to normal before.

"I, uhm," she clears her throat and begins to move, to get out of the chair, away from him, that's all she can think about. "I have some stuff, that I need to do." It is bullshit, and he sinks away and back to the floor as she layers it on.

"Well, can I see you later?"

"I don't know," Violet tries not to meet his eyes, busies herself with picking up a text book that she had long since forgotten from her desk, pitches it to her bedspread. "I have homework, and my parents want to have dinner together tonight, so—"

"Fine," he is somewhere between offended and irritated when he pushes up from the floor, shooting her a sour look in his path straight toward the portal. "Forget it."

She wants to say goodbye, but he slams her bedroom door before her vocal chords even remember what goodbye sounds like.

By Monday, the seventh day, Violet has maybe accumulated 10 hours of sleep, no nights full. She is the epitome of bedraggled and a mess when she throws on her clothes and tosses her books into her bag. She decides to go back to school because she can't stand the thought of lingering in this house, with memories, with him, fucking hovering everywhere, in the mirrors, in her dreams.

But she knows in large part she's going back to satisfy her own morbid curiosity, to look for any signs or clues of what she knows happened there, what she hopes had never happened, in those haunted halls.

And her search is not unfruitful. She doesn't know how she missed all of it before. There's signs everywhere, pictures of the same kids from Halloween, and a few others she hadn't seen, only without all the gore and blood splatter, pretty and happy and young. She goes to the library, where the teacher in the wheelchair is a douche that provides her with no answers, only more questions, and more reasons not to sleep at night.

She floats through her classes. Her teachers ignore her, and so do the other students. Leah doesn't even brush by her in the halls. She isn't an attraction, she doesn't make a scene. The rest of her day goes by without excitement, and she ends up skipping her last period to take extra time in the library again, to scour over yearbooks with his face in him – he ran track, he looked healthy, he looked normal, he looked how she sees him everyday.

The librarian asks her about her book selection when she heads to checkout and Violet shrugs around an answer, feeling paranoid that she'll notice the name in the books, that she'll have seen her staring too long at plaques or yearbooks or have heard her conversation with the other teacher and that the librarian will make a fuss.

But she doesn't, she just stamps them with a kind smile and tells her to be safe on her way home.

The school day ends. No one says goodbye to her. Her parents aren't there to pick her up, like everyone else's are, and she leaves the library with her bag a little heavier, filled with three extra books that have checkout cards with his name scrawled on them, dated '94.

Violet does not intend to return them.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** ... okay, totally lied to you guys, the angst isn't nearly over yet. Had to churn this one out, it came to me, and I wanted to get it down. A lot shorter than the others, but I felt like I needed to squeeze it in. Consider it chapter 5.5, that's how I have it labeled on my computer.

Phewwww... and is it just me, or are these two EFFING EXHAUSTING to write for? But they're so beautiful. Guh. Alright, I'll quit blathering on, hope you guys enjoy!

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

The water has long since run ice cold. His hands are red, frozen, numb when he reaches around to turn the tap down and off. They're both shaking, teeth chattering noisily, crammed up against each other, it's a tight fit in the tiny bathtub.

It's a breakdown of the worst kind, raw and untamed, he knows it well. And he's so, so sorry, he knows this is because of him, and he needs to undo it. All he wants is to find a way inside the depths of her and warm her up, make her whole again, fix what's broken, it's all he's ever wanted for her, but now more than ever. He whispers as much against her soaking hair, prayers in his kisses, in his hands, as he rubs her arms furiously and wills her to light up again, like he knows she can, like she has before, tries to force it from his chest and into her as he pulls her closer and tries to bury her into him.

But she doesn't do that. She doesn't illuminate, she doesn't flare, or even fizzle - she only wilts and sags and empties out her heart all over him as she cowers and keens.

"I told you to let me help you, I _asked_ you," he sobs against her shoulder, rocking them, trying to get a good grasp on her hands but they're slippery and limp and she won't hold him back, won't give him anything, so he clutches at her wrists instead, thumbing up her sleeves to caress the rises of her marred flesh. "Violet, I asked you, why didn't you let me, why would you do this, _why_?"

It echoes in his head, in his heart, in the room, all around. Why did she shut him out, he still doesn't understand it, doesn't see a reason, what changed, why she could've done such a stupid fucking thing, she's so brilliant and smart and funny and beautiful and everything good in his miserable world, why wouldn't she let him in to help her? What had he done to her; what did she do?

And she doesn't have any answers to his infinite questions, only her quiet weeping filling the otherwise silent expanse between them. It breaks his heart over and over again, in every tremble and wave of her grief.

She eventually just shudders against him, her body exhausted and spent and drained of tears. He can feel her slipping down against his torso, and at first he thinks she's falling asleep – but then he knows, with immense dread upon his soul, he knows it. He can feel it, through the marrow of his bones and in that invisible, unnamable thread that connects him so much more deeply to her, and he starts to panic, starts to pant, violently shakes her arms to rouse her, to get some kind of sign out of her.

"Violet," he hisses, wracks her, and growls again. "Violet! C'mon, _no_!"

She doesn't respond, her head rolls back on her neck in a way that it shouldn't and the house swells up around him; it must know, too. "No, no, no," he's quaking uncontrollably, wrapping his arms up underneath her limbs, dragging her into a soggy embrace as he openly wails her name. "No, please, no!"

His prayers go unanswered and his pleading remains unfulfilled, and he's just left all alone with her dead body, vacant and lifeless and not at all the girl that he loves, because she's gone now and he only holds what's left of her.

He cries. There has never been any such pain known in the world. There can't ever have been.

Time goes unaccounted for, as he sits and bawls and sways her gently back forth, all of her bundled up tightly against him. But eventually, it comes to him, as it always does, like a light swooshing through a vast tunnel. That monster, always trailing somewhere inside his head, decides to do him a favor and gets his shit together for him, because he can't do it by himself.

Tate rises with a sucking sound, peeling himself from the tub basin and collecting her heaviness into his arms with a final, painful hiccup when he takes in her blank face, devoid of the pure essence of _her_.

Dripping from head to toe, he carries her through the house. A private funereal march, for her, and the house just breathes it in, satiated in its latest acquisition. It's proud; he is devestated.

His feet lead him down into the basement, and the answer is made up in his mind for him already, the solution to this problem a simple one that he didn't even have to conceive, and he's so grateful for that.

Her body is nestled finally in the crawlspace, safely tucked away from the prying eyes of those who may be lurking in the shadows. He makes sure of that by keeping watch for the night, a vigilant guard over her remains. And his plan starts to widen throughout the evening's lapse, it takes full shape and form, and he debates and nods and mumbles to himself and to her body as he really appraises the situation and accepts it for what it truly is and takes into consideration what must be done, what's for the best.

When they can all agree, he decides.

She can't know. None of them can. It should be easy, at least for a little while, until he has to make his move. She'll believe him. He'll find a way to make this work. But she can't know, not yet. He has to protect this, what they have, he has to protect her.

In time, when sounds of feet scuffling and other noises of life stir from above, he leaves her there with an apology, kneeling to press groveling kisses upon her face, his tears dripping over her cheeks. "I'm sorry," he whispers and brushes her still-damp hair behind her ear, and he shivers when she doesn't respond. "I love you. I'm so sorry, Violet, I'll fix this for you, I promise."


	7. Chapter 7

**Author's Note:** AHHH, see? Heeeere's the good stuff. It doesn't have to be all angst, though there's certainly weepy undertones in this one, as there will likely be from now until the end. Like ohyellowbird noted a couple chapters ago, this is the end of simple romance for Tate and Violet, as shit is most definitely getting real.

Again, I'm still new to writing smutty things, so pleeeaaase let me know how it is in your reviews, whatever your opinion may be!

Thanks, guys! I really appreciate all of you reviewing and reading! :D

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

They lay there for quite some time. She isn't sure how long she sleeps for, if she sleeps at all, and she doesn't know if he's rested, either. It's just a wave of drowsiness, of idle dozing, like she's fluid and drifting simply around the concept of time. Violet can feel the slow and steady pacing of his heart under his layers, his chest swelling with every measured breath, and tears spring into her eyes as she counts it out silently between his shoulders. She doesn't understand how this works, or why; how is he so solid, so real, but he's…

Her eyes dart up to her chalk board, his words still plain as day, ringing in her ears and stinging her vision. She nudges her face into his spine and shuts her eyes against it, feeling that sorrow from before begin to settle in again. Her tiny hands fist tightly over his, her whole body tensing against his back, and any sense of sleepiness that was once found in him is dismissed. He grips her hands back, letting her know he's still tethered there to her, before shuffling over on to his side to find her face so near. Her brows fight together and her lower lip is sucked worrisomely under her teeth, and his fingers release hers and draw up to her cheeks, to her mouth, coaxing her lip free, and he eyes her with weary concern.

She wants to throw him any half-hearted sign to help him, to ease his concern. But she can't muster it anymore; the whole of her is completely exhausted, she doesn't know that she's ever felt so tired. He seems accepting of it however, still bundled close against her, and he leans his face in and captures her lips considerately, and her lids close again and eyes leak at the corners. She wants to apologize for getting his cheeks wet, but his are too, and he persists without flinching. His mouth is kind and simple, sweet even, as he works to soothe her in the way he seems to know best. But her heart is preoccupied, still consuming and processing and breaking down all that she has been exposed to in the last few days.

She wonders how long it will take before it's done and she can look at him and touch him without hitting this potent wall of sadness within her.

As if catching on to her wavelength, he whines against her mouth and his tongue brushes and slips through her lips earnestly, and Violet's empty misery begins to slowly twist into something warmer, something she likes better, something she finds more of a welcoming distraction rathern than an emotional bother. She sighs as relief finally starts to sink into her bones, her concerns dissipating in between their mouths. His knee moves forward, parting her thighs and sliding up and tenderly pressing against her center, and she finds so much consolation in the pressure. She tightens her thigh firmly against his outer leg and shifts closer, moves down against his intruding limb, her palms sweaty as she skirts her tiny hands down the front of his shirt then under, finding warm, smooth skin.

Little fingers search for dents or holes she now knows should be there, but all she finds is the soft plains of his stomach and ribs, his skin prickling at her touch. Tate breaks away from her and he puffs her name into her face, and she feels heavier for it. She focuses, or tries to, on his eyes – dark and deep and full of shuddering levels of want that she doesn't think she'll ever equal. She feels kind of bad about it, but she wants it from him all the more.

His knuckles graze her cheek, and she tilts into the motion.

"Are you still tired?" He wonders quietly, breath warm on her lips, tip of his nose touching hers. It makes her feel better, a little bit, she kind of forgets.

"What if I said I wasn't?"

"We can do whatever you want." He pauses, giving her a long, watery stare. "I just want you to feel better."

Violet can't tell if it's him that moves his thigh up or if she pushes down, but she breathes in staccato at the gesture and presses her lips together, closes her eyes, nodding in agreement to whoever initiated it in the first place. "Me too."

Her hips are rocking forward imperceptibly now, little shifting, rustling the denim at his knee and thigh, and her hand grasps at the crook of his elbow, at the front of his shirt. He exhales in wanting, and it makes her tuck her leg harder against his, she has to get closer. His forehead is damp as he presses it into her neck, and she listens closely as he just breathes her in, fascinated by the sounds he makes.

"I love you," he whispers, all shaky truth and purity like before, and it turns her stomach upside down and makes her brain burst unkind things, things about him she doesn't want to know, wishes she didn't know, and she pushes her face into his with a cheerless whimper and her fingers flex at his shirt hem.

When his hand finally skips down her stomach and taps at the rise of her hip, pulling her pelvis closer into him with the gentlest of force, Violet shivers all throughout. She can feel how hard he is against her other leg, and when she innocently brushes his outline with her knee he sucks in sharply and his hands clench a little harder. It's like déjà vu - her hand runs down, down, until her fingernails catch at the teeth of his zipper, and she palms him and his head tilts back, away from her mouth, with a harsh exhale.

Interested suddenly, Violet's gaze falls to his throat, his collar, where there's a new flush blooming; she's sure she's got one to match. But it unravels in her mind this consideration: even regarding what she knows now, she sees so vividly here that, god, he bleeds and blushes and breathes and needs and wants and loves and hates like she does. So what does that mean, in all of this? What does that make him? Does that make him more of the monster she should be afraid of, or less so?

He must see it in her face, her curiosity, he ducks his chin to try and catch her eye with an almost childlike uncertainty. She has stilled her mindless caressing, and he's confused, pink-faced and red-lipped over it, it's almost pitiful to her. Her mouth moves over an apology but she doesn't make a sound, just gives another kind squeeze and presses an innocent kiss to the underside of his jaw when he moans through his lips and tips his hips toward her groping digits.

They untangle themselves, and he pulls himself to rise above her, hastily strips off his button-up and lets it fall to the side of the bed, does the same – yet with much more care – with her heavy cardigan, then rolls down her tights, and she is irritatingly nervous because this is brand new territory she's breaking into (and she probably shouldn't be) but she's thankful for his soft and careful hands and tender eyes. He settles on his hands and knees and just stares down at her, and the notion rips through her that she's trapped there, vulnerable, beneath him, and she would never get out even if she wanted to. It's unnerving, but he begins trailing his hot mouth along her jaw, her neck, her breasts, leaving little damp spots over her clothes in his journey and Violet suddenly can't remember what it was exactly like to be scared of him.

He finds his way toward her navel, pushing her shirt up just to kiss a sliver of paleness, before he slips back up, one hand slides down, and it sets her chest on fire. His thumb sneaks under the top of her underwear, around the front, the rough pad brushing softer skin, and she squirms.

"Tate," she breathes out, since it's all that really comes to her, mind wiping as the sweltering tug in her tummy takes precedence above any other rational thought. But he doesn't respond, just leans into the mattress with one folded arm, nestles his body down against her, a little tighter to hers, and his roaming hand dips down to cup her covered sex.

He falters and expels everything in his lungs against her breasts, his cheek pressed snuggly there, and she can feel his hand shaking faintly against her panties, fingers running tentatively over the wet spot he's made in her. "Fuck, Violet, you're…"

But what she is remains to be seen as on the word, he pushes her underwear aside, slips a finger underneath her cotton cover and right into her, hot air forced from his flaring nostrils. Her eyes close around the world and all she sees is red and black space behind her eyelids and the balanced sound of his heavy breath being fanned across her chest. He investigates, pushing in and out slowly, but Violet shakes her head and reaches down for his wrist, withdrawing him, and he's frowning in bewilderment when she opens her eyes.

"No, not like—" She pants, can't say the words, and instead just brings her own hands down to push at her pastel panties, rolling them over her thighs, he helps tug them the rest of the way down and she flicks them from her ankle to the edge of the bedspread. Violet dislikes his scrutiny of her nakedness, as though she needs to feel any more exposed around him, but his wonder still makes her flutter inside, and she brings her hand over top his and draws his up, brings his forefinger and middle up higher, against her nub, and presses them in a firm rotation and sighs with an involuntary lift of her pelvis.

"There?" He presses and rolls again and lifts his eyes to hers for further instruction and she just nods, eyes closing, licking her lips.

"Yeah, like that."

He's a quick learner, following the lead she'd shown him with ease after a few curious moments, and he makes her hips jump pleasantly with each rotation. It's a lot different, bigger fingers and an irregular touch. But he does push down against her clit in the way she likes to do when she's all alone and thinking of him and it makes her breathe his name and gasp for cold air, and every time she does he rewards her with a firmer stroke. She's so lost only in him and this funny building pressure inside her, and any prior thoughts of pretty dead boys or girls with leaking head wounds or empty pill bottles or tragic little secrets evaporate into absolutely nothing.

When she mewls and tips her head back into her pillow, Tate takes the invitation and mouths his way up her throat, to the underside of her ear. "I love you, Violet," he murmurs again into the shell like a little prayer and she could cry, she's burning all over, too much, all over. She bites down hard on her lower lip after tearing into a jagged breath, and her legs spread apart, thighs twitching in anticipation. His mouth stutters, his stroking at her roughening, she bows up toward him, and he buries his face against her shoulder and she feels him grind himself down against her leg. "Fuck, _fuck_…"

He breaks her in half the time it usually takes her. Violet turns her face, muffles a girlish wail into her pillow when it finally bursts and ripples outward, taking everything with it. He kisses reverently into the crook of her neck, and her insides clench wonderfully while he keeps circling, soothing her, her hips giving little jerks while she rides her high down.

She's melted bliss, a different kind of tired than she was before, with barely enough energy left in her to meet his mouth when he invades. It's sloppy and rushed; his face is warm, he's utterly pulsing with heat, and Violet reaches down between them, to his zipper again, but his hand catches hers and she remembers, on the beach, and her high quickens its dissipation. She twists her wrist out of his grasp with an angry furrow of her brow, but he snatches it back brusquely.

"What the fuck," she scowls, ready to tear into him at this second rejection, but any rising fury fades when his free hand works his button and fly down, and he hastily shoves her own hand into the parting and upon his hardness.

"Just, here," Tate struggles out, breathless, and it startles her all at once, because this is very real suddenly, and she sucks in a breath and meets his glassy eyes, all but eaten black now.

His lashes flutter though when she composes herself and finally takes initiative, clutches him carefully over his boxers, and he braces himself with either hand beside her head. Longer fingers fist at her sheets and he arches his hips into her careful palming, trembles when her hand snakes cautiously in under the fabric; it makes her vibrate right to her toes when she circles him and he exhales her name on a quaking whisper.

Violet only gets in a single lengthy stroke before an idea comes to her, something filed away that she probably has no business knowing offhand, and the removal of her palm makes him almost buckle above her.

"What-?" He chokes, pathetically, but watches mesmerized when she brings her palm to her mouth and spits into it. His lips are parted in rapt attention, she can see his tongue flick behind his bitten lips, and his eyes close so serenely when she returns her wet hand upon him and resumes with a hidden smile.

Her fondling of him is experimental at best, she's a novice, she knows that he already knows, so she's not as embarrassed as she thinks she should be. But the look of sweet torture on his face wouldn't give it away, and that makes her blossom inside with something akin to womanly pride and fuck, if she isn't wet again already. Violet stares up at him, watches and listens and catalogues things about him, like the way he grunts and hums above her while she jerks him off, his cheeks coloring with redness, his hips giving little thrusts into the small, damp circle of her hand. She feels brazen suddenly, rises up just so, kisses under his ear and sucks, while her free hand lifts and her nails scratch lightly, idly at the nape of his neck. Tate moans low and bucks, and she tightens her fist around him and quickens her pace, reclining back down between his arms and his eyes, so infinitely dark and endless and a little bit manic right now, they pin her down.

"C'mon," she ushers him in private tones and he whimpers, puffing out uneven breaths, she knows he's coming, can feel him shiver in her hand and above her. It's only a few more swift strokes until he comes with a hoarse expletive and a short, sharp cry, fingers digging into her bedding, teeth clenched so hard she thinks they might shatter. She lets him enjoy it, too caught up in the expressions he makes, the tensing of his limbs, the way his mouth moves.

Eventually, she pulls out her sticky hand from around him, wiping it on the thigh of his jeans and off her fingers, and when he's found himself, he smiles sheepishly and she blushes, charmed by him.

He inhales deeply and tips over, on to his back, and just breathes like he has to remember to do it. She watches. He catches her, and smiles, so genuine it makes her heart stitch, and he takes her hand and pulls her closer, until she's tucked against his side. Violet settles parallel and curls her fist into his over his stomach, and runs her cheek over his shirt, cuddling though she'd never admit it. He is fully content, and she is too, all that anguish from before abated but she knows it'll fall in again soon.

"So... you feel better?"

It's like he reads her mind.

She tilts her face up, sees him staring, sees him hopeful and a little bit playful, of course there's vague suggestion there, because he's a boy. Violet quirks her lips and kisses against his ribs. "Yeah. I do."

His fingers lace through her hair and brush down through rather solemnly, and she rests her chin against his chest to just watch him watching her. She knows a question's coming.

She is not wrong. "Are we good, then?"

It hangs between them for a pregnant moment, and Violet musters her best poker face. Her hand slips up, her thumb runs over his high cheekbone, and he swallows with sad eyes. "We were never _not _good. I just had to work through some shit."

"You're gonna be okay, you know?" He's willing her to believe it, even though he has no idea, he wants her to feel it, and it makes her quiver because she actually starts to. "Whatever happened, and the pills," her eyes fall from his face, and he catches her chin between his forefinger and thumb, "Hey - you're gonna be okay."

Violet nods, somber, but pushes up to find his lips in a sincere kiss, tries to really mean it. She pulls back to smile faintly down at him. "Yeah. Yeah, I know."

He is placated, though she knows he's skeptical, but Tate nods and returns her smile. She roots back down under the nook of his arm and presses her face into his side, as fatigue similar to before swaddles her, and she falls into deep slumber long before he does.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's Note:** Who says you can't be productive on a sick day? Here's a little fluff! Kind of, anyway. I don't know, writing this little bullshit piece made me happy, but it's just another little stepping stone in CIYS. Hope you all like it, it's nothing special. :)

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

The week passes a lot easier than she thought it would. Maybe she just needed one good release or two, to clear her system and her head. Violet stays home from school for consecutive days, keeps holed up in her bedroom with her shades drawn tight. Tate only visits her twice during the day that week, which is fine, she needs a little me time anyway. She paints and draws and writes stupid poetry sometimes and listens to her angsty music and wonders idly why her mom and her dad don't come up to turn it down, but she's sure they're probably just afraid of invoking her wrath by entering her bedroom without permission.

Or maybe they know she's home.

And maybe they don't care.

That theory is put to the test when she goes to get a glass of water, not really expecting anyone to be home (mom and that bitch realtor had been in-and-out all afternoon, she fears the worst), but her mom is in fact there and catches her by the elbow and tells her they're going to have a family dinner and discuss what's going to happen to the house, to the family, that they have a possible buyer. It's some Persian guy, Violet only got a glance of him through her bedroom window earlier in the day, she tells her mom she thinks he sounds sleazy, but Vivien just gives her a look somewhere between amused and stern and tells Violet just not to forget about dinner.

Vivien doesn't even seem to notice the time of day, that it's just a little too early for Violet to be home from school yet. Violet wants to laugh about it, but there's just something about it that isn't all that funny to her. It actually kind of bugs her, all day, even. She can't get it out of her mind, how her mom didn't even notice that she had been home, inside the house with her, all damn day. That her mom didn't even say anything, not even a reprimand or a lecture, and it just really, really irritates her. She knows things have been pretty gruesome lately for her mother, between her dad being a douchebag and finding out about the twins, but still.

Just … still.

Violet sits and stares at the walls of her bedroom for a long time, Fiona Apple turned low so it's only an alto tinkling from her iPod dock, and she chews at her lower lip and debates and debates with herself, she feels so spun up. But when she breaks the skin and tastes copper, that's it; she's pulling up from her bed and snatches up the black kit from her dresser and makes for the bathroom with quick strides that make her a little breathless when she gets there.

Hastily, she unwraps her kit, unfolding a small selection of razor blades and she could melt with relief at the sight. She plucks one out and fingers it cautiously, squints to make sure it's still got an edge, and she draws up her sleeve and she doesn't know why she's so nervous so suddenly.

But when she lays the blade down and starts slicing, her skin parts and warmth pools over her in red and all over her insides and she feels so much better for it.

He finds her before she's even completed the first cut, barking at her, he's angry and making her feel guilty over it, and that relief washes away in shame. Tate makes her promise that she won't do it again, and she hesitantly agrees because right now, he's the only one that seems to have a clue or seems to care what she's doing or where she's been and she doesn't want to disappoint him or risk losing that and being all alone.

They go back to her room, and she tells him about the stupid dinner (she leaves out the part of selling the house for now, something just tells her not to bring it up), and he asks her abruptly about ghosts, tells her she's his "better place" with sincerest eyes. It stitches her up the middle; even though she's never been a believer in that hokey afterlife bullshit, she thinks she'd believe anything he tells her when he speaks with her like this.

She wants to bottle his voice and the way he looks at her, like this, so when she's feeling like shit, like earlier today, she can just pull it out instead of a tiny blade and know that somewhere, to someone, she's worth something more. And it's not just in moments like now, it's like all the time, and she wonders how he isn't exhausted by his giving her all of this emotion.

Violet settles on the bed next to him and lifts her hand, tucks some messy blonde curls behind his ear, and his head follows her touch, eyes still wandering over worn pages of some poetry collection she acquired from an old bookstore back home. "That's sweet, but your standards aren't very high," she teases, and he smirks, but his eyes go serious when he looks upon her and she blushes at his intensity.

"Why do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"You do this thing, where you get all self-deprecating, like you don't know how special you are," he discards the book, his hand circles her wrist and draws up the arm she had been cutting into earlier. He pushes up her sleeve and she looks away while his thumb grazes over the tender spot, pushes in hard enough to make her wince. "You really don't see it?"

She wants to draw away, but he holds her captive in his gaze and grip, and she licks her lips when she glances back. "I guess not."

Tate moves forward and presses his dry lips to hers, and Violet sighs, gets those middle-school jitters in her stomach. It's chaste and sweet and short; he pulls back enough to look into her eyes and her butterflies die a little when he breathes solemnly, "That makes me sad."

Violet draws up a half-smile, raises her hand when he lets her go and she plucks at the neck of his sweater playfully with her forefinger. The mood needs to lighten, because she just doesn't want to deal with the heavy right now, especially not with dinner looming and the minutes ticking away. "Hey, tell me more about ghosts," she requests, looking for a topic change, darting her eyes back up and hoping his mouth will move into something other than a frown.

His lips do twitch and he thinks about it, before he pulls an arm around her waist, drags her into his lap and she accommodates by shifting her knees around his hips and tangles her arms about his neck, and Tate looks up at her with a crooked grin that comforts her weariness.

"What, like I'm an expert?"

He's teasing her, but it makes her chest ache a little because yeah, technically he is. Violet fingers a curl at the nape of his neck and just tries to smile around the lump in her throat because she knows he can catch any nuance or change in her face. "Well, you're the one who started waxing poetic about the afterlife, not me. C'mon," she tugs at the lock and he laughs and so does she, "What else?"

"I know they can be nice, sometimes," Tate shares slowly, his cold fingertips edging up her layers of fabric to tap at the tiny bones in her back. She shivers and arches and he tilts his head, observing her. "Or they can be mean, and cruel."

"What makes the difference?" Violet closes her eyes and breathes in when his palms smooth around her front, slide up to cup her over her bra.

"I always guessed it was in the way they die, violent or against their will," he muses and presses his nose into her temple when she bends into his touch, her hands fist at his shoulders as he kneads at her and his breathing gets a little heavier against her ear. He shifts, and she wobbles in his lap and can feel him getting hard between them. "I mean, if you die peacefully, why would you be angry?"

"Yeah, but if you die happy," she pulls away and looks at his face, he's flushed, eyes jumping from her lashes to her lips, "why should you be a ghost, anyway? Don't they have to have a reason or, like, a vendetta to stick around or some shit like that?"

His hands slip out from under her clothes and fall to the rise of her thighs, his thumb traces a figure-eight as he considers her question, he seems a little nervous about it, and Violet reflects she's gotten good at reading him, too.

"I guess," he finally answers, brow furrowed, then tacks on as an afterthought, "but maybe not."

"How do you mean?"

He shrugs and glances somewhere at the foot of her bed, away from her face. "Maybe it's about the place where they died."

She wants to ask him. She has the words in her mouth, the question fully formulated in her mind, she wants to ask him so badly, she fidgets on top of him and he inhales through his nose and holds her hips steady. Violet chuckles and mumbles a hybrid of an apology and his name and dips into his mouth so she won't fuck things up and ask him this really, really important thing that she's going to eventually have to talk to him about.

But she won't just yet, things are just starting to get easier, she can kind of accept that he's a dead ghost boy that's in love with her and then there's that darker part of the story, where he killed a bunch of kids like her and like him, but it's easy to forget that, too; there has to be more to that subject than just him and a shotgun with no remorse, because when he looks at her like he does and touches her like he does, there just _has_ to be.

Her name is called from downstairs. Tate breaks away from her lips with a humming chuckle, and she wilts in his arms.

"Sounds like daddy's home."

"Fuuuck, I don't want to do this," she grumbles and picks at lint fluff at his collar, rests her forehead against his and presses in closer, unwilling to move until her name is called again.

"I know," he tells her, empathetic, and he squeezes her hip tenderly. "I hated family dinners. They're just another forum where parents get to try and make themselves out to be martyrs, and they expect you to listen, all because they set some warm garbage in front of you and called it 'food.'"

"Right?" Violet groans and starts to rock back, but he tugs her into his chest again and she exhales heavily and settles her face in the crook of his neck. "So, are you staying up here?"

He shrugs and it jostles her a little. "If you want me to." Tate looks down, and he catches her eye and she nods.

Her mother shouts for her this time, and she grits her teeth, leans away from his torso and hollers back. She turns to frown at him petulantly and he just smirks, lets her climb off him, and he stretches his arms out to assist in straightening out her clothes again.

"You want me to bring you anything?" She offers, feeling obligated to do so, even though he laughs. "I feel bad just leaving you up here."

"I'll be fine. Hey," something occurs to him, and he waves the book he had been reading before in the direction of her bookshelf. "Can I read whatever?"

"Yeah, sure." She rolls her shoulders. "Knock yourself out."

He grins wide. "Cool."

She watches him scoot back into her pillows and settle comfortably in her bed with his book, and it warms her from the inside out, makes her toes curl in her shoes. She wishes she could climb back in, worm herself into his arms, wonders what it's like to sleep beside him like_ that, _and if they ever will_._ He must feel her watching, he glances up to catch her staring, and that expression on his face is unreadable, but something she instantly recognizes.

Ben calls out, and he sounds close – at least on the same floor. Violet tears herself away and moves for the door, face and chest on fire and his eyes burning holes into her back.

Her father stops her in the hall with a smile that should rise guilt out of her, but all it does is send a sour taste down her throat.

"Hey, honey, how's-" He makes to reach for an embrace, but she brushes by him, callous and hard.

"Let's just get this stupid charade over with."


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** I swear I didn't die, you guys. Or forget my little baby here. Reality decided it wanted a little bit of my time, so I was forced to surrender to its will. Ew. BUT NOW, YEAH, FIC! Hopefully I can work out a couple chapters over the next few days, I'm bursting with ideas.

In other news! RECS! If you haven't read it yet, **ohyellowbird** and **ScarlettWoman710** are working on a collab called _**The Curve of Her Lips** _and it's so boss, y'all. Only a couple chapters in, and I'm ready for more.

But outside of AHS (if you're interested!), a while back I stumbled upon some amazing Heroes fics. Zachary Quinto's awesomeness in AHS made me go back and look for them, and 'LO! So, if you're an Elle/Sylar 'shipper, I highly recommend **rawkry**'s fics.

And that's that! Let the fic commence!

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

She stops questioning his apparition; he doesn't know when that starts. Tate thinks he should be nervous about it – but he isn't, not really. He's sure she knows about him by now, about what's really going on here; she's the smartest person he's ever met, so clever and brilliant, of course she would get it without having been told. Still, he's afraid to bring it up, but it's on the tip of his tongue now more than ever, he just wants to be honest and share everything with her. Yet she catches it deftly in her mouth and he winds up thinking of other things and she just feels too good in his arms to risk losing it all.

Violet is outside today, hiding between a hedge and the brick wall of the patio, puffing on a cigarette. He can see her and the trail of smoke from up in her room, where he usually hovers and observes. Tate wants to go sit with her, but she doesn't like being smothered, he gets it. He gives her what space he can allow her, watches and guards her, and when he sees her fidget in boredom, he'll know that's his cue. Today's the first time she's been out in the sun since swallowing a whole bottle of pills that didn't have her name on them, and he almost forgot how pretty she looks out in the world.

Tate feels a little guilty about that, too.

He should tell her. But he knows she won't take it well – he remembers it, himself. The confusion, the despair, the panic. He doesn't need to see her sob and shake and watch her heart break and spirit ruin all over again; he had a front row seat before, and it was absolute torture. No, he'll think of another way, a different way, one that won't destroy everything wonderful about her.

She's moving below, dusting off her bottom, turning and tilting her head in recognition to someone he doesn't see. But there he sees who's entered into their private world, and he's seething when he watches the cocksucker's lips move around Violet's name.

"Why, darling! It's the middle of the day," Constance coos as she approaches, hands gesturing toward Violet. "Don't you have school?"

"Eh, I haven't been going," Violet shrugs. Off Constance's surprise, she offers an equally unaffected, "Don't really feel like it."

"That's a dangerous slope, dear," the woman waggles a finger and he growls from the shadows as she takes another step closer into _her_ light. "Nothing good comes from that kind of behavior. Does your mother know?"

Violet glares, cold and hard. He loves the way her eyes glint meanly. "I think she's a little preoccupied, don't you?"

Constance thins her lips and squints. Assessing. "That certainly doesn't mean she doesn't worry. We may not always show it, but a mother's cares and concerns run much deeper than their children can even imagine."

"Is that the same line you told_ your_ kids?" Tate feels a rush of panic, his stomach bottoms out. Does she know? How would she know?

Constance is caught off guard. She swallows, tries to get her guard back. "Now, just what dirty lies has that boy of mine been feeding you?"

She's the picture of disgust and disregard, Violet folds her arms and cants her head and the curtain of gold enthralls him enough to almost make him forget that she knows his most truly terrible secret. "Oh, come on. He doesn't have to _lie_, when it's so fucking obvious." Constance gasps at her audacity and Violet presses on, undeterred. "I mean, it's so text-book, I almost feel bad about my dad taking all your money."

It's a very tense pause that hangs between them before Constance sidles in a step and Tate wants to lash out. She leans in nevertheless; lips sneered, and she sniffs at the air in front of Violet's face. "Well," she whispers and eyes the girl up and down. "You two just have everything figured out, don't you?"

"I guess so, huh?"

The woman moves to open her mouth again, but he can't take another second of this defiling of what's most precious to him, and he intervenes. "You need to leave." He's pleased with the effect, Violet gasping his name (always the best sound, he doesn't think there's anything that compares) and his mother whirling about in surprise and horror at his appearance.

"Tate, honey—"

"I said, 'leave.'" He won't budge an inch for her. He never does, he doesn't understand why the bitch's head is so thick to think anything different is going to happen. And people call _him_ insane.

Constance shifts between the two teens, a longing look centered her son's way, and he tries to roll it off his shoulders with little reaction. But somewhere deep, it does ping inside him. He chooses, as always, to ignore it and the ringing in between his ears, reaches a hand out for Violet's, and she takes it, and he is instantly soothed in the moment they make contact.

"I'll meet you upstairs?" Tate mutters in tones meant only for them, and she nods, and his heart soars at her wide eyes.

"Yeah, sure. I'll, uh, go set up the chessboard." Violet moves away from him and toward the kitchen door, though she hesitates with a look over her shoulder.

Tate doesn't have to look behind him to know she's gone; he can feel it in his bones when Violet isn't near. So he can focus on his problem now, and he steps down and into the sunlight and threatens Constance with his proximity. "What are you doing here?"

"I was just bringing that dear woman in there a healthy lunch," she hums, attempts to look unfazed, but she doesn't have it in her. Constance lifts a hand to cup his cheek, but he ducks out of her range. "Have you been spying out here the whole time?"

"Did you tell her?"

Constance smirks. His nervousness amuses her. He hates her. "What? Are you ashamed of where you come from?"

"Yes." And he means it. She knows that, but still he can tell she buckles a bit under the admission.

She straightens out her blouse and tries for a steadier chin, a meaner look. Tate knows that one, and he readies himself for a blow – physical or verbal. "Well, maybe it'll ease your fretful mind that she already knows about your little 'condition,' too." He blanches, and she carries on and looks at her nails with a frown and clucks her tongue. "Oh, and she cried about it for days and days, poor girl. I was so worried that she might lose her mind over the whole revelation; you know it's a lot to deal with, I felt a bit bad for letting her in on the secret. And then when her momma told me about Violet's sudden depression, that poor woman said she couldn't eat a thing, she was so sick with worry over her little girl – of course, having been through the same kind of grief, I just had to come offer some assistance."

Constance's eyes flick up to his face, and he hates that she must see him broken, even if it's just a fragment. "At any rate, I'm certainly glad to see Violet's handling it all well. Both of them. Those Harmon women are somethin' else, aren't they?"

He can't speak. His teeth are grit together, he can taste the enamel chipping, feel his face rushing with blood, hears those voices in his ears start to cry. She must know, because her victorious smile wilts and she bows her head. "Anyway, dear, I do need to be on my way, I've got a cake in the oven that I hope isn't ash by now. I'll come bring you all a slice when it's done."

Tate grimaces as she moves in and presses a kiss to his cheek, pats the spot there with a little roughness and a bit of nail, then twirls away in her typical fashion. But the farther she moves away, the quieter his head gets, and he is relieved. He remembers Violet upstairs waiting for him, and just as quickly as he imagines her delicate fingers strategically placing pawns, he's at the foot of the attic ladder, and he yanks at the cord, his mother already the farthest thing from his mind.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** ... okay, this is the last chapter before the big reveal about Violet. Not that there won't be any fluffy goodness, but I've almost been staving it off because it's just so saaaaad. Baw. Anyway, this one's kind of random, watched the scene where Violet serves Ben in his office, so I went from there.

As always, thank you for your wonderful reviews! :)

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

Violet barely has her door shut before she hears her father bounding up the stairwell. And sure enough, moments later, Ben's pounding at the portal with a tight fist, the wood behind her head rattling with the force of his determination as she sinks back against it and wills him and all of her life to vanish into oblivion. Of course, it doesn't work.

"Violet! You open this door right now," Ben demands in stern tones, and Violet knows she should oblige, the consequences of not doing so are going to suck, but she just fucking can't deal with this bullshit for another second.

"Just go away," she turns her face, presses her cheek against the door, feels it rumble, hears him sigh outside her bedroom. "I have nothing else to say to you."

"You don't get to talk to me like that and just walk away-"

"What the hell do you even care?" Violet twirls away from the door when it creaks with the weight of her father leaning against it. She wants to put as much distance between them as possible, the idea of being anywhere near him nauseates her. "Does any of this even really fucking matter to you?"

"Just open the door, Violet."

"Go. Away." She shuts her eyes and wishes her father back down stairs, or into a different world altogether, just away. Like the way _he_ had taught her.

As if summoned, by her ear there's a hum and a sudden breath, and Violet makes to gasp but a familiar hand slides into place and plants firmly over her mouth and Tate murmurs against her cheek, "You know it doesn't really work like that."

"Violet?" Her father sounds weary, less fury-driven than his last call of her name. She just stares ahead at the door, her eyes burning and unblinking as Tate holds her firm against his chest, palm still clamped over her pressed lips. "Please, honey. I just... I don't want to leave things like this. Please, just ... talk to me."

Tate's fingers trip slowly down her lips as he relinquishes her face, though an arm stays in place around her middle. His chin rests against her crown and she trembles just a bit against him, somehow anchored and safe yet nervous and irritated all the same. Nevertheless, his proximity gives her courage when she knows she'd buckle to her father's pleading if he weren't here.

"I don't _want_ to talk to you," Violet manages, and Tate nuzzles into her hair and inhales her scent. "I don't even want to_ look_ at you." Ben utters her name barely loud enough for her to make out the consonants but she does, and Violet closes her eyes against how miserable it sounds. "Jesus, just leave me alone, dad."

His palm slides against the other side and it sounds like defeat. Then, after a few heavy seconds, his dragging footsteps are echoing down the hall and down the stairs and Violet heaves a shaky breath. The floor buzzes with the silence of the aftermath and Violet can only hear the steady sound of her and Tate's breathing in the quiet.

He speaks first. "Are you okay-"

And she cuts him off, breaking out of his gentle hold with a rounding of her shoulders and a brisk step forward. "I'm fine." She turns to him, face blank as his brow knits into a confused line at her sudden shift in demeanor. "What are you doing here?"

"I.. just wanted to see you," He slowly utters, looking nonplussed to her defensive stance. "Violet, what's the matter?"

"God—I am just so fucking sick of talking about this shit," she throws her hands up and laughs bitterly, before refolding her arms against her chest. "Seriously, maybe if he didn't fuck up everthing in our lives, we wouldn't have to have all these stupid 'talks.'" Violet uses air-quotes and shakes her head, face contorted in disgust. When Tate starts to open his mouth and moves in closer, she brushes past him with an agitated noise, toward her bookshelf, plucks out a random tome and flips blindly through it as she rants on. "Or you know, maybe people could start using this whole 'talking' concept before things start going sour, actually work out their problems instead of having to deal with a giant shit-storm at the end."

Tate sighs, runs a hand through his hair as he listens and settles down in the large chair under her window. He tries his best to stay patient while she carries on angrily, just watches her stew across the room, waiting for it to billow out of her sails. When she finally looks up at him, really acknowledges his presence, her face breaks just slightly and he knows she's running on empty. His heart aches for her in that moment.

"Come here," he waves a hand to beckon her closer and she tosses the book back on top of the others and sullenly makes her way toward him.

When she's close enough, he takes her hand and pulls gently, and Violet settles into his lap, tucked in under his arm with her legs kicked over his in the small space provided. She turns her face into his shoulder and shakes her head, both silently wishing they could bury themselves in each other, and Tate runs soothing circles over her spine.

"I don't know how it got so bad," she speaks softly and he tucks loose stands of hair behind her ear. "Everything... it wasn't all like this. Things used to be pretty good. With mom, with dad..."

She starts to look faraway when he peeks down at her, and Tate imagines she's somewhere in the past, somewhere where leaves change color for the seasons. "And then … like, I never would have thought my dad would be a cheater. Never. It all just got so fucked up, and then they kept saying they were trying to fix shit, but they weren't doing _anything_ to make it better. Not really. They both half-assed it, and now here we are."

His arm winds tighter around her side and Violet exhales, closes her eyes, listens to the beating inside his chest. "I want to get out of here, Tate." He swallows thickly, her head bobs just a bit as he shifts, and she wishes out loud, "I just want to get as far away from them as fucking possible."

"Violet..."

Violet doesn't recognize the tremble in his voice, the trepidation there, but she looks up at him and sees the crease in his brow and the downturn of his mouth, and she grants him a sad smile. "Hey, I don't mean it like that," she misinterprets his concern, but he's comforted by her hand slipping up around his cheek. His face bows into her palm and she scoots up to press her mouth to his.

His confession is gone, both his arms have snaked around her waist, and when Tate looks down at her as their mouths drift apart, Violet can barely recall her rage from moments before. Just like that, with him, everything evaporates. "I don't want to talk about it anymore," she tells him abruptly, and he nods, ever compliant. "It's a waste to keep harping on it."

"Hey, I'm here for you," Tate reminds her, fingertips dipping against her back. "If you want to spend the whole afternoon telling me what a giant douchebag your dad is, we can do that. If you want to play Uno all day, we can." His hands run up her side, pushes her shirt up along the back, and his features shift into something a little more playful. "Aaand if you wanted to work on something _else_," he suggests lowly with hitched eyebrows and she shivers as his cold palms sneaks up under and wide fingers tinkle at her bra strap, "Wellll, we can do that, too."

Violet scoffs lightly and ducks her blushing face, and she opts instead to wiggle back down to fit into the nook of his arm, and he obliges her by slipping his hands back to places of propriety. He has to admit he's disappointed in her deviation from such endeavors, however. She isn't aware of that though, and continues conversationally, "_Actually_, I was trying to play with your brother earlier." She tilts her head back to spy him smiling down at her. "My dad saw me talking to nobody in the basement; he probably thinks I'm going crazy."

"Do you?"

"Oh, yeah. I think I lost my shit a long while ago."

He makes a noise indicating he doesn't like that train of thought and she slides off his lap and onto her feet again and holds out her hand to him. "Here. C'mon, I think my dad's in his last session." Tate puts his hand in hers and lets her act like she helps lift him back to his feet. "We can have Moira make us some lunch, then when he's gone, we can go screw around with the stuff in his office."

"Isn't that a _little_ juvenile?" He pretends to be exasperated with her suggestion, until she lands a playful punch to his upper arm and he chuckles, rubbing at the spot.

"Hey, you said we could do whatever I want."

Tate tilts his head to the side and makes a petulant face. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Yeah, you did."

"Are you sure you don't want to take me up on one of my other offers?"

Violet hits her tongue to the roof of her mouth, tsking at his boyishness with a roll of her eyes. She peeks her head out her bedroom door, looks up and down the hallway carefully, pleased to find no one in sight.

"...She's not going to make us brains for lunch, is she?"

"Ugh, god, I hope not," Violet feels nauseous over the very idea as she finally side-steps into the empty hall, with him on her heels. "Seriously, what the fuck is your mom doing bringing my mom _brains_, anyway?"

"I don't know," he grumbles, face contorting though she can't see. "I don't know what she's trying to do."

They tip-toe down the staircase, careful not to make a sound as they inch through the house and toward the kitchen. When they do pass her father's shut office door, Tate has to firmly clamp his teeth together to keep from guffawing at the flippant middle digit she flings the portal's way. They scuttle the rest of the way, both on teenage high at the risk of being caught in broad daylight (for him, with her; for her, with him and on a school day.)

Upon entry into the kitchen, they both note that Moira isn't around. Violet pads over to the laundry room, the only other haunt for the old woman, and she's frowning when she re-enters the kitchen. "No dice. Guess we have to fend for ourselves."

"Is she off today?"

Violet shakes her head. "I don't think so. She'll show up, eventually. She's probably out buying my mom more weird shit to eat."

"It's cool you have a maid. We had a maid."

"She's fucking creepy," she tells him with a sneer, and he laughs aloud. "She's got this weird eye.. I actually caught my dad trying to fool around with her once. I don't know who was more freaked out: him, me, or her."

"Gross," Tate moseys toward the fridge, opening it and eyeing the contents with very little interest at all. "He really does have some issues."

"Right? Just ... so uncomfortable." Violet settles in one of the chairs and rests her chin on her fist, her eyes following Tate as he inspects the innards of her cabinets, watches his hands as they skim across the sink, the pasta arm, the gas stove. A question lights anew in her mind, and it's out of her mouth before she has time to rethink. "So, how come you never told me your mom was Constance?'

He freezes while studying the mug collection, and he takes his time closing the cabinet door, and even more hesitance before he actually turns to face her. Violet's not looking accusatory, it's almost a bored sort of curiosity in the gentle furrow of her brow. He struggles to not sound defensive. "How would _you_ like to tell people _that's_ your mom?"

"Point," she tips her head in concession. She notices the twitch in his jaw and frowns. "Are you mad?"

Tate resists the urge to roll his eyes and turns away from her to gaze out the kitchen window. "What, that she's my mom?"

"You know what I'm asking."

"Then you know the answer."

"Tate."

His lungs are heavy and he has to force the air out as he looks back upon her. She feels so small, perched there behind the island, and she thinks from the look on his face that he must feel bad for being a prick, but she knows he also hates talking about this. About anything to do with his mother, or his past. She doesn't blame him. "Why would I be mad?"

"I don't know," Violet shrugs and glances down at her hands, picks at her bitten nails. "That I, whatever, nosed around in your life?" She looks back up and he's moved in closer, he sits beside her and makes a motion for her to give him her hands. She does, and momentarily she's worried he might break her fingers. "I'd be mad."

"You shouldn't bite your nails," Tate tells her after a beat, then meets her steady gaze. "I'm not mad."

"She really does suck," Violet offers, and she feels better when he hitches a half-smile. "I'm sorry."

He continues studying her hands, from fingertips to wrist. "I hate her," Tate mutters, his eyes darkening as less favorable memories loop. "She's not just a bad mom; she's a bad person."

Instead of inquiring, Violet just sits and listens and lets him play with her hands while he talks, hoping for more but letting him offer what he will. It's the least she can do after that display with her father earlier.

"And it's not just to me, but it was Beau and it's Addie, too. I feel bad for them."

Oh, that name. Her heart sinks heavy when he brings up his sister, she had really almost entirely forgotten, and then she feels like an asshole forgetting at all. Tate must sense the shift in her, because he lowers her hands from his eyeline and stares into her, and she wonders what her face must look like from his look of concern. "What?"

She withdraws her hands as quickly as possible without seeming too rushed, folds them in her lap. "Nothing," Violet lies and lowers her gaze away from his, hopes he hasn't rooted it out of her eyes before it's too late. "Let's just make some lunch and go upstairs; I don't think Moira's coming back soon, but my mom probably is."

Violet is certain she must look suspicious, but to his credit, Tate doesn't question her hurried movements to prepare them both sandwiches and dig up pops from the bottom bin of the fridge. With their food in hand, they retreat back up the staircase in silence, careful not to draw much attention and eager to get back to their private zone.

He hesitates on the landing however, lets Violet go ahead as he waits and watches Dr. Harmon collect his coat and hat from just beside the front door. Ben pauses to gaze into the deeper part of the house, a look of pain and confusion on his features. Finally, he vacates the home, and Tate smirks to himself, more than happy to be confined alone with Violet once again.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** So, just kind of a weird idea that popped into my brain one day. I don't think Tate ever made it clear that he had lived in Murder House, so I wanted to try and do that reveal. This is set the night that Viv gets shuttled off to the crazy house.

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><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

This day never seems to want to end. Even though the sun is gone, and the night is quiet, it hasn't stopped, none of it.

Violet squirms against Tate's chest and he pulls her closer and she sighs heavily into her pillow. His breathing isn't shallow. She knows he's awake, too.

God, what has she done? What did she do to her family? What the fuck is wrong with her? The guilt is seeping into every part of her being and she can't escape it, no matter how deeply she tries to bury herself into her bedding or into his chest. She can't take back what she did tonight, and it feels an awful lot like the final nail in a coffin they've been building since her family moved into this hell hole.

She's a fucking coward. She hates herself. She should've died when she took all those pills; things probably would've become a lot easier for her parents – and for herself. Her mother wouldn't be plagued by imaginary and very real horrors, her father maybe would be happier and maybe her parents would be together and united, and she wouldn't have to feel so, so terrible like she constantly does.

"Violet, hey," Tate murmurs into her shell when he hears her whine and she tips her head forward, away from him. "What's the matter?"

She starts shaking her head, shucking the covers off of her body and pulling out of his warmth to sit up, to detach from him and maybe break out of this creeping swell in her belly. "I can't do this. I fucking—" Violet feels the violent sensation of nausea rising up her throat and she shudders, her fists clutching at the blanket around her lap. "Tate—"

"Hey, hey," he hushes and sits up too, and she just stares at his naked torso, unmarred and clean and she really lost her virginity to him this morning, what the fuck is she doing with her life? His hands slip around her shoulders and she closes her eyes while he rubs kind circles into her skin. "Just calm down, alright? C'mon, what's wrong?"

"Are you serious?" Her eyes snap open and she rolls a shoulder jerkily to dislodge his palm, ignoring his wounded look. "What_ isn't _wrong? My dad's worse than ever now – not to mention he fucking got _shot_ tonight – and my mom got sent to the loony bin, and it's _my_ fault—"

"It's not your fault—"

"I should've said something," she stares at him pointedly and he gets that deer in the headlights look, brown eyes widening, like they did earlier. "Tate, I have to."

"Violet, no," he sounds scared, it's unfamiliar and unsettling, and his fingers curl tighter around the curve of her arm. "You can't. You know you can't."

"I can't do this to my mom—"

"They'll think you're both crazy, Violet." Tate has regrouped and is stern with her, giving her the slightest of shakes. "What good will you do your mom by telling them about what we know? Trust me; it won't help. I've been there. All they'll do is shack you up in a room with eighteen locks on the door and fill you full of horse tranquilizers."

A switch of some kind flicks in her brain, and suddenly something changes in the way he seems to her, in the way she sees her bedroom and this house with him in it. Violet squints at him as a sobering calm filters through.

"…How do you know so much about this?"

He's quiet for a beat too long, and there's a sliver of guilt shining over his eyes when he looks to the side of her face, not directly into her eyes, and she knows he's avoiding. "I don't—"

"Tate," she bites through, and he looks back at her, startled, and she already knows her answer. "Please don't bullshit me right now."

Tate's staring straight ahead, brow furrowed, and she wonders what he's cooking up as a possible reply, filtering maybe through all his other excuses that maybe he's used on her before now. But he doesn't get a chance to formulate one, as she cuts to the chase.

"Did you used to live in this house?"

No response, and this time the silence is heavy and her chest crushes under it. She knows for sure he did. It all adds up, of course. Violet makes a noise and turns her head away from him when he reaches in. She draws her arms up and folds them, guards herself against him. "I can't fucking believe you."

"Violet, let me—"

She growls and throws the blankets off of herself, she should have more clothes on, she hates the fact that she's so vulnerable (in so many ways) and she's wishing for a shield and armor to wield against him. "Please, _please _explain. Really, I'd love to hear this—"

Tate's up on his knees, beseeching of her with eyes that glisten in the dim light of her room. She's caught between a shuddering urge to hold him and push him out of her life. How can he have such a hold on her? How did this happen?

"I swear it's not what you think."

"Oh, no?" Violet glowers and doesn't try to hide her disgust. "You lied to me, Tate."

"I didn't!"

"You certainly didn't tell the truth," she gestures wildly, fresh venom in her mouth and relief that she's found an outlet easing her mind. "You don't think when you started hanging out with me you might just tell me I happen to be living in your old house and by the fucking way, it's haunted by murderers and monsters and shit?'

Tate just sinks under her tirade, his gaze downcast as he takes the verbal beating that she so thoroughly believes he deserves. Violet blusters on, face hot, seeing absolute red and not taking a breath to reconsider, "No, you just go on like it's all nothing, but you knew this whole time – you fucking _knew_! And you didn't say anything! Not really, not until weird shit started to happen and even then, all you give me is some fucking vague tips or ghost stories, nothing that really fucking helps me _or_ my family!"

"Violet, I'm sorry," his words are weak, and she hates him just a little bit for it, she can't help it, she's furious. But the way he looks up at her, Violet's anger sinks a notch and she wants to take it back, but there's a part of her too stubborn. "I just… I thought it would be weird—"

"You thought it would be _weird_?" There's her ire stoked again. "Okay, you're seeing my dad for therapy, your mom just happens to be my creepy next door neighbor, but you think telling me that you used to live here would be the weird thing?" She scoffs and tosses her head back, fed up with everything in the world. "I think you need to go."

He slips out from under her covers, and her bed looks so empty that she almost wants to push him back into it. But she won't. She just stares at him, jaw set, eyebrows knit. "You don't mean that." It's more of a plea than a statement. "Look, Violet, I swear I'll tell you whatever you want. Anything. Please, don't send me out."

Violet chews at her lower lip and considers, takes in his wet eyes and his chest and her lonely bed behind him and she knows, deep down, that if he were to go, she doesn't know that she could make it alone throughout the night. And so she concedes with a huff and brushes around him, gathers her shirt from the foot of the bed and tugs it back on before slipping back under covers.

He hesitates by her bedside, looking down at her stoic form, and when her eyes dart into the corners toward him but not directly at him, he takes it as his cue to rejoin her. Tate is careful as he climbs over her legs and sits in front of her, Indian-style and clad only in boxers. It would be silly, if she weren't so torn up about this discovery. His hand skips up her leg over top the blanket, and she startles a bit, but doesn't jerk away entirely.

"I really am sorry. I never meant to mislead you—"

"But you did."

Tate bites his lip, chews off a piece of skin. "Yeah," he bows his head. "Yeah, I know."

"I don't get it."

He groans and shakes his head, a hand raking through his tousled hair. "I don't know, I just—something just … told me not to. You know, say anything."

"'Something?'" Violet lifts an eyebrow and he shrugs, child-like. "What's that supposed to mean?"

Tate brings his knees up and wraps his arms around them in a move that is clearly defensive and evasive. "I don't know. I guess I thought you'd think I'm some creep—"

"Yeah, well, I already thought that," she deadpans and he starts, glancing up, but he is soothed by the smirk playing at her lips. "That should've been the least of your worries."

"Yeah, well…" Tate seems to sense her lessening dissatisfaction with him, and so he tentatively crawls up parallel to her. She allows him to, because it feels better than the alternative of him not being near – even if she is still pissed off. "I did anyway."

"When did you live here?" She turns her head to look up at him, curiosity overriding any other emotion that may have been rioting inside her moments ago. It always gets the best of her. "I mean, what happened?"

Tate is uncomfortable, that much is clear, and Violet has to actively try not to feel bad about prying, reminding herself that he owes her this. He must agree, as he allows slowly, "When I was a kid, we were here. Then after my dad split, we got evicted. Then we moved back."

"And then?"

"And then I moved on." He stares at her, and she knows what he really means, and what he wants her to believe are two entirely different things.

"So, what, did all this ghost shit happen when you lived here, too? Is that how you know all about it? Or is my family just special?'

"_You_ are special," he is particular about it, and she blushes. "But … yeah. Those two nurses. My brother. The Montgomerys." Tate sighs and plucks at her sheets, chewing on his thoughts as he quietly and hesitatingly divulges this precious information. "There's another family, too. They died before we moved in the second time."

"How?"

He looks down at her. "Two girls and their mom. Their husband killed them."

"Oh my god, seriously?"

"Set them on fire."

"What the fuck is with this place," Violet mutters and sinks against her pillows, draws the blanket up to her chin with tight fists. "Does everyone just go nuts here?"

The smile on his lips is wry, and he nudges her with a shoulder. "I guess so."

Violet nudges him back with a quirk of her mouth and leans in to chase it – but she dodges, tucking her chin to her breast with doe eyes and he draws back curiously.

"Are … you still mad?"

She shakes her head and shifts upwards but her eyes are serious and her lips are puckered tensely. "Kind of." He sulks in front of her and she rolls her eyes, shoving at him. "Stop it. I'm allowed. But I won't be mad forever." Her hand reaches out and he meets her halfway, taking up her digits in his own. "But Tate, you can't lie like that. Not anymore, okay?"

His head whips fast in agreement. "I swear, Vi. I won't. I promise."

Her eyes are skeptical – they both know she is hesitant to believe him, and she can guess that it makes him sour inside. But she allows him back in regardless, as she is wont to do. Tate ducks forward into her mouth and she sighs, giving in again into his intrusion and the comfort that willful ignorance allows her.


	12. Chapter 12

**Author's Note:** So, **ScarlettWoman710** expressed sadness that I hadn't included Violet and Tate's first time. I don't know why I skipped it, honestly! I really thought about doing it, but I just couldn't get it right. But I DID want to do some fluffy smut with them before we reached the horrible, awful ending, so this came about.

I took some liberties with the timeline in "Spooky Little Girl" and "Smoldering Children" - in this, Ben is going to see Vivienne about her rape AFTER he has talked to Violet about not skipping school anymore. So, this is supposed to be the night before Violet is planning on going back to school ... but we all know what happens next. :(

Anyway, time for recs! I know I've said it before, but if you haven't read **ScarlettWoman710** and **ohyellowbird**'s _The Curve of Her Lips_, you need to now. So pretty. Aaaaand, if you didn't know about American Horror Story Exchange hosted by the lovely **jandjsalmon**, there are some AMAZING fics that have been delivered over there, and everyone should go read them right now! Seriously, some of the best pieces I've ever read are there. GO, go go! Here's yourself a link:

ahs-exchange(dot)livejournal(dot)com

As always, I hope you guys enjoy, and let me know how I'm doing! I need to rewatch the episodes; I miss these two so much. I don't know how I'm going to cope next season with no Violate ... but at least we still have Evan.

* * *

><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

His hectic footsteps are doing nothing to her benefit. Violet blows an agitated noise through her nostrils. There he goes, back and forth, a relentless pacing in his office, then a sudden immeasurable, unpredictable pause, before the _click click click _of his soles as he takes too-short strides that she's starting to mimic with the beating of her pencil.

The math problems are beginning to blur, and her notebook page starts morphing into a fuzzy cloud seamed up with red and blue threads.

Violet really was trying this "halfway" bullshit, but that's what it was beginning to uncover itself to truly be – bullshit. Dad's concern (which, to his credit and her amazement, seemed genuine) and the prospect of facing very real consequences for her delinquency, and then there was guilt (ever the thorough motivator) … It had spurred something in her tummy that propelled her forward, made her want to be something better, like she knew she could be, like what she wanted to be a long, long time ago.

But she wasn't sure where it went now. Lost somewhere under his steps as she counts them and maps out the figure-eight he's practicing in the room down the hall.

Dad calls her name and she rouses and attempts to look dutifully at work on her long-since overdue homework.

"Hey, honey," he puffs like he's too frazzled to take a breath, and he breaks to bend and plant a kiss at her temple. "How's your homework coming?"

"Uhm, pretty much the way I imagined it would."

Dad smirks on her behalf and rubs her shoulder. "Boring?"

Violet rolls her eyes and makes a grumpy sound. "Basically." She starts to look back down at her book, but she hesitates when she takes in his coat and keys-in-hand.

Off her curiosity, Dad begins staggeringly, "I, uh, was gonna go see your mom. Did you—"

"Oh," Violet feels a guilty throb in her conscience and reexamines her homework. "No. I'm good."

"Are you sure?" She stays quiet, and he presses his hand a little harder into her shoulder. "You know, she'd really like to see you, Vi."

"Yeah, I know, I just—" Violet strums up something. "You know, I just want to try and knock out this homework before tomorrow. Get caught up and everything."

Dad chews on her excuse and he knows her well enough to sense an evasive maneuver in action, she's sure, so she just doesn't meet his eyes when he sighs. "Okay, hon. Want me to tell her anything for you?"

"Just that I love her." Even she hears it like a trite offering.

But Dad lets it be, gives a pat, and turns from the room. He pauses at the dining room doorway. "You want me to pick up something for dinner while I'm out? Get some Chinese?"

It's a play for the continuation of their truce. And it isn't necessary. Violet bites her tongue and shakes her head. "Doesn't matter; if you want. I'm not really that hungry, so."

Yeah. It isn't necessary. He gets it. And he leaves without a proper farewell, though she didn't say goodbye either, and she hears him lock the door and it twists up in her chest. Violet pitches her pencil across the table as the car starts outside. The yellow scrap of wood starts off doing a couple violent cartwheels and then rolls right over the edge and into space.

She can't concentrate anymore. It's a lost cause, adolescence and aggression and depression winding her up into a furious little top of mutinous emotion. Violet heaves herself up out of the chair with a snarl, hating that she had bothered to even bring herself into the dining room to do homework. Like she was in middle school or like this was the old house or her old family or her old life or something.

Violet doesn't do this anymore. She knows she's not _this_, she thinks as she flips her notebook defiantly closed, _not this_ kind of girl anymore. And just pretending she _was_ wasn't gonna make it true.

And just like there's a shift in her, there's a shift in the house itself. Honeyed crooning swells and creeps downstairs from her bedroom, and Violet shivers as the bluesy sound beckons her to abandon, and she follows gratefully. But it's more than the gentle, idle notes, more than the promise of escaping the ugly charade she'd built around herself for a few quiet hours – the thrill in her joints comes only at the guarantee of just who switched on her iPod dock.

Her knuckles lift to rap at her own bedroom door, and she blushes, feeling silly over it. But she does it anyway and flattens her palm against the wood and waits. She hears shuffling on the other side and he appears just like that, the force of his swinging rustling her hair and his smile startling her on to her toes.

"Hi," she offers, and Tate reaches out for her limp hand, drags her into her room where the swooning melodies provide so much more comfort than she should really find therein.

"Hey."

He has her hand pulled up to his chest between them, another arm slung low around her hips, as he rocks her in time to the languid tempo. "What have _you_ been doing?"

Violet doesn't notice his positioning and strategic swaying for a few unsteady beats. But when she gets it, her nose crinkles up at him. "Are ... we dancing?"

"If you wanna. I was looking for you."

"I was studying."

Tate makes a face down at her, his nose brushing her forehead. "Yeah, I saw."

"So, instead of saying hi like a normal person, you decide fuck with my stuff?"

He shrugs and she feels him pull her into him a bit tighter. "I just wanted to get your attention."

"Message received."

"I don't know."

"What?"

"I wanted to put on some scary head-banger shit at first, scare the crap out of you, you know?" She laughs at his confused glance toward her iPod, "But I didn't know how to find it on there."

"Well, first of all: you wouldn't find it. I don't have any of that stuff on there. And second," Violet arches up and winds her arms around his neck with a huff, "it wouldn't have scared me."

"You say that now because _this_ is what's playing."

Violet frowns. "I like this. It's Lana Del Rey."

"I remember," he nods and she's pleased that he does, "but I'm just saying, the mood's already been set, so you can't really say—"

"Wait, there's a mood?"

"Oh, yeah," Tate grins like a teenage boy and it isn't until the backs of her knees hit the edge of her mattress that she notices he's been side- and box-stepping them toward her bed.

At his ushering, she sits and sinks back as he slinks over top her, and she scoots back to be better pinned between his arms. Her eyes dart down to his mouth and it's an unspoken flag waved, he dips in and she doesn't think this crackle will ever dissipate between them. She hopes not.

Because when his mouth trails across and down, when his tongue flicks against her earlobe and she breathes heavy into his hair, and his hand cups her breast through her shirt, she's really feeling something, and that beats the fuck out of faking it just because she's "supposed" to. These days, for her, raw and real emotions (beyond guilt and weariness and a bit of anger) are scarce, sparked up really only in thoughts and being with him most days and today is proving to be no exception as he wiggles a hand down between them and pets her through her tights.

He groans and she nuzzles up into his hair and arcs into his groping palm, his name on her lips, which he greedily takes for himself, tongue and teeth and wet urgent mouths a mess. The concept of foreplay is still lost on her. The ache between her thighs burns hot enough without needing to be stoked and Violet tries to relay as much by the cinching of her limbs around his torso, her knee nudging into the nook under his shoulder blade.

"C'mon, off," she tells him in a pant and he obliges, quick hands pulling her tights down roughly to her ankles. Violet toes them the rest of the way off as Tate resumes undressing the rest of her, his fingers itch at her skin and she goosebumps up and down her arms, and her shaky fingers pluck at his shirt hem for permission.

Rustling fabric, and he zaps her with static when he reaches to pull her up and she gasps into his mouth, skin on skin almost all over.

"You shocked me."

His chuckle is uneasy with lust, she can see it in his heavy lids and dark eyes as her fingernails rake at the scalp behind his ears. Tate bows into the warm cradle of her hands, his cheek pressed against her wrist as he watches her watching him. "Sorry."

Her hand passes through his hair and catches at a tangle near the back of his head. He doesn't flinch. "You ever wear your socks and scoot along the carpet to build up static? I used to all the time when I was kid."

When his hand slips down to delve between her toes, Violet squeaks and tries to jerk her foot out of his grasp. Tate clutches at her and pulls at it despite her protesting.

"Then I guess I'm glad you're not wearing socks."

She's beyond happy that he doesn't tickle her, instead dragging her toward him. He folds her leg over his thigh and she curls it around the curve of his hip. He tugs and she scoots in further, her ass in his lap in just a couple of shifting movements and he presses his tongue flat under her ear and she moans and rolls against him.

"Violet," he stutters when she cants her hips into his again, both his hand coming to still her motions, but she whines and he squeezes. "What is it?"

"I just wanna—" Violet blushes and squirms at his sweaty hands over her thighs, she can feel how hard he is beneath her bottom and she feels all liquid inside. "It's just- my dad will be home soon."

Tate hesitates at her long look, the barest of glances traded out the window, but then nods, a breathless 'okay' whispered against her reddened lips. He pushes firmly with both hands on her waist and she finds her back flat against her rumpled blankets, the position from before reassumed as he climbs atop her and puckers warm kisses against the length of her neck and collar while tricky fingers snap at the sides of her panties and roll them down past her knees.

Instinctively, she tries to close her legs around him but he nudges her right leg apart with his elbow as he settles between her knees, eyes trained on her opening and really, she's still not used to this invasiveness. Violet cranes her neck back and stares hard at the ceiling, face burning into a deep crimson as Tate slowly drags his thumb down through her wetness.

She can't see him, but she can feel him staring at her. "What's the matter?"

"Nothing, it's nothing."

"Are you being shy?"

"Shut up!"

He shifts up closer and leans down over her, trying to meet her face. "Hey, Violet, look at me. C'mon."

Violet struggles with herself and tips her chin down just slightly to give him access to her eyes. "What?"

"You don't have to be embarrassed," Tate tells her quietly, his knuckles coming up to run along her cheek. "I love you. Every part of you, you know?"

She swallows thickly. "Yeah, I know. It's still kind of unnerving, is all."

"Don't worry." He pushes a hard kiss into her closed mouth. "I just want to take care of you. I want you to comfortable."

"I am," she nods, and he smiles. Her hips lift, as a little reminder, and he takes his cue and settles back to tug off his boxers. Violet resists the compelling urge to dart her eyes across the room, wills herself to examine each bit of him, keep herself grounded in this moment. Her gaze casts up, into his face, and she finds him staring right back into her with that intent look she is constantly awed by.

Her mouth falls open but she has nothing to say, and Tate exhales a soft sigh and leans forward, kisses her a bit sloppily, and she has to admit that she likes it when it's not always perfect.

"I love you," it's his number one top hit with her, riles her up like nothing else can, and she mouths something similar against the curve of his ear as he slowly pushes himself into her.

Violet bites her lip and clenches her eyes when he slips out and thrusts back in, and again, and again, gradual in his pace and each hit draws a sharp sound up from the back of her throat and an echoing grunt on his part. She pants harshly, opens her eyes to find his boring dark holes into her face and she gasps her surprise at his heavy consideration. It's like he's trying to read every word that's ever etched itself into her brain, dig out all her deepest, darkest thoughts from every tiny crevice of her mind. And to her, it eats her up on the inside because no one ever has tried to figure her out like that.

No one has ever bothered. Or no one has ever wanted to. But there he is, and he wants to. He wants to know every ticking part of her.

"Tate, come here," she trembles and whispers, and he whimpers in kind, ducking his lips to slot against hers parted. They break with a sucking sound and trade nonsense noises and hearty breaths in the short, hot gap between their mouths as he ruts into her, and Violet can feel the wave starting high inside her tummy.

All her senses are on fire with him, but the warm pull-and-push is not quite enough to get her there, and she just needs a little... She huffs and wiggles a hand between them, down to press against her clit with a sigh, and she rubs in time to the rhythm of his hips between hers. Her head arcs back to gather a fresh breath into her lungs, that ache is tugging clearer, and the slap of Tate's hips is growing less rhythmic and more desperate with every plunge he makes.

Somewhere, distantly, she hears a rumble over gravel up the drive, but it's an inconsequential sound as she begins to reach the crest. She furiously twists her fingers, working her clit harder, his name the pattern her tongue and teeth make silently in between hard intakes of air as she feels them both building and breaking.

His hand curls over her breast and squeezes as he jerks twice, three times more, and he barks out her name in his coming, whines as he spills himself into her. Strands of her hair are caught up among the sheets he digs his fingers into and it hurts, but it's enough to make her bow up on a sob, her aching wrist caught between them as her insides clench and spasm violently around him.

They both still and wait, riding that blissful pulse between them, unaware outside the lingering heartbeats it lasts.

Tate finally sucks in a shuddering new breath and withdraws, watches Violet as she just lays and gulps in cold air, she can hear him pull his boxers back up and he settles just up against her. His fingers prickle the skin along her neck as they inch along the length of it, and she opens her eyes into slits to spy him smirking across from her.

"Hey," he supplies, and she rolls her eyes.

"Hi."

His hand slides lower, over her swelling sternum, down to her navel, and he settles his hand flat there. She just observes him quietly, brings one hand to fold over his while his other brushes hair from her damp forehead.

"What are you thinking?"

Her eyes jump back up to his face and she is at a loss. "Not really anything."

Tate grins and smoothes his palm around the curve of her waist and pulls until she's on her side, Violet folds her thighs together and curls up close to him, her nakedness warmed by his proximity.

"I think your dad is home," he mutters, brown eyes studying every arc of her face.

"Yeah?"

She listens, can hear the front door shutting and her father's footsteps across the foyer. Dad calls her name a couple times, she knows he's probably looking over her homework and then into the kitchen, but she shakes her head, tipping her crown to nestle under Tate's chin, and he welcomes her against him with open arms.

After a moment, Tate twists and reaches behind him, unwinds half of her crinkled sheet from beneath them, barely enough stretch of fabric to enfold both their torsos underneath. But she settles in against his steady chest and curves her fingers around the edge of the sheet to tug it taut over top them.

"Hey, Violet?"

Her lips curl into a smile, he sounds all sleepy-boy. "Yeah?"

"Why were you doing homework?"

Impending sleep staggers to a halt, and her eyes fly open to stare into his clavicle. His breathing is still slow, he's still drifting.

"Dad asked me if I had any to do. I didn't want to lie." And that isn't exactly an untruth, so she doesn't feel so bad about his dreamy hum above her head.

She is uncertain, does not know why she doesn't immediately tell him the truth; she just thinks it might be a bad idea, and something just tells her not to bring up her promise to Dad. A sour feeling in her stomach dares to erode the pleasant wash around them, but his arm tightens around her ribs and Tate murmurs a goodnight into her hair and she is soothed. Rocked by his even breathing and huddled into his warmth, Violet soon finds the road to slumber easy, and she is gone away by the time her father's knuckles have rapped on her bedroom door.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note:** I wanted to do something more Tate-centric before we get to the brutal ending. The inspiration for this one came from this fantastic video I found on YouTube:

youtu(dot)be(slash)thxScxXUOU4

Do yourself a favor and watch it. Guh. I am going to miss the shit out of this kid next season. :/

Anyway. Not much else to say about this one. It's late, and I'm tired, and I love you guys. I hope you like it!

* * *

><p><strong>Cough into Your Sleeve<strong>

The card game has long since gone forgotten, and both of them sit now with their spines pressed against the iron frame of her bed, huddled side-by-side. And it is pleasant, he doesn't want for anything to disrupt this moment, especially given the chaos of the day - and not of the kind he typically enjoys. No, he just wants to concentrate on every little breath, the in and out of air in her lungs, so unnecessary (and they both know it now) but he just has to listen to it anyway.

Violet slowly stretches her foot out, her leg parallel to his own, and he looks down at the small round hill of her kneecap and he contemplates plucking up the piece of lint from her leggings. She turns her face toward him, distracting him, her eyes and mouth are still swollen from devastation and revelation, and he finds the weak curve of her lips at the corner such a curious gesture.

Tate tilts his head at her, and she rolls her shoulders, and goes back to staring right ahead at the portal of her room.

"What?" He wonders, interested in her second glance back.

Violet shakes her head. "Nothing."

"Violet."

She hesitates, chewing on flaking skin from her lower lip. "Just…" Her eyes go a bit glassy, and he tries to follow her thousand-yard stare, figure out what road she's wandering. But just like that, she turns to look upon him, her brown eyes bright with inquisitiveness that he so often finds endearing in her. "How did you tell your mom? When you died?"

It wasn't what he was expecting. Tate frowns at her. "What do you mean? She saw me—"

"No," Violet cuts him off and straightens up a little, her shoulder brushes his, and he doesn't miss it. "I mean, like, how did you tell her you were a ghost? How did she find out?" She pauses, her tongue brushing her lip, "How did _you_ find out?"

"Man, it's been so long, I can't really remember what it was like," he admits with a shrug. And it's true; the memories have blurred and melted into some vague watercolor in the back of his mind, but Violet purses her lips in skepticism towards his uncertainty.

"Seriously? How do you _not_ remember finding out you're dead?"

He doesn't know if she notices, but he sees her shiver a bit on the word and he feels bad for her all over again.

"It's not like I was surprised that I was dead," he tells her anyway. "I mean … I remembered being shot up by the cops. But, I don't know, I guess I was just still numb about it." And he still is, honestly. It still doesn't resound in him, he doesn't ever really feel it - he doesn't feel anything when he thinks upon it, now or ever.

"You weren't excited?"

"Are you?"

"No." Violet folds her arms. "But it's different, right?"

He scoffs. "How do you figure?"

"Well, you knew you were going to die," she points out. "A whole SWAT team mowed you down." When he ducks his head, she apologizes quietly, but she presses on nevertheless. "So it's really like you got this second chance."

"Yeah, and so did you."

"But I didn't know I was going to die. I didn't mean to."

"We all know we're going to die, Violet," it's a douchebag sort of statement, he knows, but he just wants to watch her process it. He likes catching her off-guard like that, even if it does mean he has to endure the tremor of her lip and the spring of fresh liquid at her lashline. And at any rate, she knows it's true.

"Whatever. It's still different," she resolves, turning her face away from him just as a tear slips down from the crease.

His thumb comes up, strokes the droplet across her cheek, leaving a long wet mark along her skin. "I woke up in my bed," Tate proceeds, and Violet looks back at him warily, unsure of where exactly he's starting. "After I died," he clarifies, "I guess they had taken my body, already, my room was all clean again. But it was like any other morning. It didn't … feel different, or look different, or smell different."

She nods along, because she knows. He continues, "So, I got up and got dressed, like usual. I started to head downstairs, but mom caught me in the hall and just started bawling," Tate rolls his eyes. "She kept saying she knew it, whatever. And then I just … kind of remembered. I don't know; I didn't really … have a problem with it, I guess. It was more like, 'oh, cool, I don't have to go to school anymore.'"

"...You didn't have a problem with dying?"

Tate shrugs. "I guess not."

"Really? There isn't anything you wanted? For yourself?"

"What is there, really?" He tips his head back, enjoys the cold, uncomfortable press of the bed frame against his skull. "I mean, is there anything really worth living for out there?" He looks over at her, but before she can open her mouth, he starts vehemently, "No, seriously, Vi – what is there? Fucking hoops our parents and society want us to jump through and they just tell us those are our dreams? That that's what we should want? And why? What's the point of any of that shit if we can't take it with us when we go?"

She stays mute, and he talks over her silence, unwavering. "There's nothing I need out there, not from the world, not from anyone, and definitely not from my future." Tate is sincere in this, he tries to make it clear, wants her to believe and know just like he does. She doesn't yet, but she will. "There's no regret in death and dying. If anything, I'm grateful."

"Grateful?" Her echo sounds disgusted.

And he cares, but only as much as he can for her behalf. Still, Tate nods, "Yeah."

Violet just stares into him, her features contorted into something torn between confusion and disbelief. Abruptly, she pushes up from the floor, and Tate feels his stomach drop out at her disappearance from his side. He leaps up to his feet and she twirls away from him, and her dismissal hurts in only the way she can make him hurt. "Violet?"

"I should go check on my dad—"

He catches her around the elbow and she almost starts to yank free, but she thinks better of it and petulantly turns to face him. "Hey, what did I do?"

"How can you say you're grateful?" Tate sees her neck flushing, and he knows she's still bitter over her untimely ending. He can't blame her. "Our lives were taken away from us. Our futures."

"C'mon, you know what I'm saying. What is it really worth, worrying over the could've beens?" Tate sighs. "We're happy now."

"Yeah, _now_," Violet emphasizes, and he doesn't like it. "But what's to say we couldn't have been happier sometime in the future?"

"I know I wouldn't."

"You can't know that."

"I do, though."

Violet groans and does move to pull away, but Tate doesn't let her budge. His fingers tighten and he feels her bones beneath her skin. "You're just saying that—"

"Violet, my whole life meant nothing," he wills her to see just that, and she stops being wounded for a moment to look into him and listen. "I'm not just saying it. I hated school, if I hadn't have died, I would've just dropped out, anyway. I hated my family. I hated the world. I hated being in it, I didn't belong there and I didn't want to belong."

He drops her arm with a heavy breath and leans back against the frame, his fingers working around the twisted iron in a firmer grip than he could use on her. "I couldn't be myself. I felt like I was just … trapped, and on display, y'know?" Tate looks up to see if she's still a captive audience, and she reluctantly is. His heart cinches at the sight of her attentive, and his throat is suddenly fuller. "But here, and now? I'm me. I don't have a society to answer to or any standards I need to fit into. And I have you. I don't want anything else. I never could."

Violet rocks back and forth in front of him, her arms wound about her middle as she vacillates in her stance on the subject, and of him. She dips her head, and he tries to catch her gaze. Her voice comes out softly behind her curtain of hair, "I'm sorry you felt that way. You should've been happier."

"Maybe," Tate rolls his lips together and makes a face, but it weakens when he sees that she is genuine and she is concerned for him, or at least for who he was. He quirks a smile down at her and lifts a shoulder vaguely. "Maybe if I had known you then, my future would've been something worth looking forward to."

The silence is dense between them, his confessions heavy and he sees her start to sink under the press of it all again, the weight of the day and its reveals too much for her to withstand, she's so fragile. Tate shifts forward from the bed frame and into her space, hoping to buoy her out of the depths of where she wallows. "Come on," he tips his head in the direction of their forgotten cards. "New game."

Her mouth begins to move into the shadow of a smile, but a staggering banging from below their feet startles both, and Tate remembers what he has done and is overwhelmed with fear as he meets her surprised gaze.

"Is that my dad?"

"You should go check on him." When she starts to frown, Tate shakes his head, a bit rushed in the movement. "He's fine, I promise. I swear didn't hurt him."

"I know you didn't." And while she doesn't appear overall convinced, her words soothe him, and she gestures toward the door. "I'll be back in a sec, okay?"

He nods, and she disappears through the door in more of a haste than he would've predicted or liked to have seen. As soon as her footfalls dissipate down the stairwell, Tate lowers himself to the floor, settles his cheek against the hardwood and listens through the floorboards. He strains to hear her below, and he does, her decible indicating such shock and concern that stir a guilty bubble in his stomach. But eventually she quiets, and he can't hear much else beyond the groggy rumble of her father's voice in the first floor hallway.

Frustrated, but unwilling to risk exiting the safety of their room, he instead sits up and reaches for the discarded piles of cards and commences shuffling, and he hopes to find easy distraction in preparing for their next round.


End file.
